4/14/2012
English Composition
Prof Morkert
Where it all began
What is fair trade? Where did it start? Who started it and why? Believe it or not, fair trade has been around for a long time. Fair trade is the practice of directly benefiting producers in the developing world by buying straight from them at a guaranteed price. (thefreedictionary.com) Most items that we buy are not made in the U.S, their made in different countries and most of the time the producers are getting ripped off. Talking about fair trade for today isn’t the vocal point of this essay. Let’s go back in time and see how fair trade got started and how it spread throughout the world. The UK started fair trade about 40 years ago, which a movement began to regulate imported products. As what was said, fair trade began about 40 years ago in the UK but nobody knew about is because fair trade wasn’t a hot topic to talk about. (Fair Trade Foundation) Back then the UK where on to something because they saw how unfairly the producers of the products were being treated and how they were not being paid right. Fair trade may have been around previously but a formal labeling didn’t come out the 1980’s. (Fair trade foundation) The labeling just consists of a little symbol and fair trade is written on the bottom of each object. The label was actually named Max Havelaar who is a fictional Dutch character who opposed the exploitation of coffee pickers in the Dutch colonies. (More Fairly Labeled) Under the Dutch development agency of Solidaridad the first Fair Trade coffee with the Max Havelaar label was brought from Mexico and was sold in Dutch colonies. This started a movement in other countries throughout the world like the U.S., Canada, and Japan. They felt the need to join and use the label because they wanted to make sure that there products went through the Fair trade process the correct way. In 1992 The Fairtrade Foundation was established by CAFOD. (Fair-trade) The vision