Fair Trade Essay

What if there was a way to consume and use everyday products while knowing the people who put the hard work into growing and harvesting them are being treated as fairly as possible? Fortunately, there is a way for the consumer to have full confidence in this while purchasing their products. What the buyer should look out for is if the product is marked “Fair Trade” or not. Fair Trade is a type of business in which it is established that the producer is paid a fair price for the goods they provide. Whereas some producers get ripped off and paid only a small portion of what they should be, Fair Trade ensures that this does not happen and gives the producers the full benefit of their work. Some may ask, “is it really worth it to invest in something that will only put a label on a product?” The answer is yes. In this day and age, every humane person should have the decency to pay a little bit extra to warrant the fair treatment of the producers. Fair Trade is quite a simple social movement to operate with rules that can be easily enforced and the range of products is large yielding it to have its strengths and weaknesses, as does every operation of this scale.
The way Fair Trade operates is simple. In order for the buyer to know that what they are investing in is produced on a farm or in a factory where the workers are treated and compensated fairly, there are a set of rules and requirements that the business must follow. The cooperatives and their coworkers must follow a set of rules laid out by Fair Trade International. FLO-CERT, the for-profit side of Fair Trade, takes care of individually reviewing the producer by examining and eventually certifying them as an official Fair Trade producer. The worksite is constantly being visi...

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...roducts through taxes and tariffs as to those who do not take part in it. Also, most products of Fair Trade are only available in specialty shops, such as health food stores, rather than stores who receive a wide distribution of goods.
Is Fair Trade the best route to take in the production of goods? I think this should be a no-brainer. Even though we as consumers are paying extra for the products, it is absolutely worth it. The extra change that is spent on a bottle of lotion through Fair Trade is 100% worth the notion to prevent the suffering of another individual. I want to know that the products I am using on a daily basis are being made in the most humane way possible. Why should we contribute to the wrongdoings of slave labor or other horrible acts of production if we can potentially avoid it? Fair trade is the most compassionate form of production there is.