WATS does it mean to buy Fair Trade?
by Ongai

What is Fair Trade?

Fair trade is a way of doing business or a social movement wherein producers of developing countries are empowered and are given sustainable and long term opportunities in producing their goods.

According to fairtraderesource.org, fair trade believes in:

• Paying fair wages in the local context.
• Offering employees opportunities for advancement.
• Providing equal opportunities for all people, particularly the most disadvantaged.
• Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices.
• Being open to public accountability.
• Building long-term trade relationships.
• Providing healthy and safe working conditions within the local context.
• Providing financial and technical assistance to producers whenever possible.

These Fair Trade criteria were established by the Fair Trade Federation.

Currently, there is one accepted definition of Fair Trade, agreed upon by FINE, an informal association of four international fair trade networks. And that definition is:

Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South. Fair Trade Organizations, backed by consumers, are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade. Fair Trade products are produced and traded in accordance with these principles — wherever possible verified by credible, independent assurance systems.

Why Buy Fair Trade products?

Skilled artisan crafting soap dishes made of wood.

Because it ensures that the producers are paid fairly for the goods that they create. It mean that they get at least their country’s minimum wage. Without having a fair trade system, producers are taken advantage of by middlemen who try to buy their products at, sometimes, unbelievably low costs then sell it to consumers for a premium. With fair trade, the producers not only get a sense of security of a fair share of the revenues, the consumers are also assured that what they bought was from people who got paid proportionately.

So now, instead of “middlemen” - of which whom provide little value to the entire product - getting a big chunk of the pie, it now ends up with the people who were primarily responsible for creating a unique and high-quality product.

Inevitably, the concept of “fair trade” will only succeed with the participation of the consumers. And so when faced with two equally trendy shoes, one being produced by a well-known company who pays their workers with ridiculously low wages striking below the country’s standard, as oppose to the other that respects their workers, crafters and artisans by providing them not only a decent wage, but also means to grow personally, we should choose the shoe of the latter.

Of course, knowing where, who and how these products were made will be tedious, but if we opt to be consistently ignorant, purchasing items that aren’t fair trade dishearten honest and producers, creating greater economic pressures for them to succumb to the control of the “middlemen-of-little-value”.

WATS’ role in Fair Trade

Me - Ongai -, Ken and Galvin here in WhatAboutTheStorey.com are, in all honestly, late bloomers to this movement. But for the past few months, we’ve encountered several experiences inspiring us to be a little less “ignorant” everyday. And with the great local talents around us, we’d like to help them promote not only their unique “works of art”, but also them as great artisans of our time to people from around the world. We carefully partner with producers who have excellent skills and treat each other with integrity, thus ensuring that each product that WATS promotes will be rich with experience and, dare we say, “LOVE“.

So please stick with us by subscribing to our site or by visiting our Etsy store. We promise to make your time worthwhile.

Related posts:

• WATS does it mean to Buy Handmade?
• Why Write this Blog?
• WATS attends first Yoga class

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