Fair Trade Certified
| Retail value Global Fairtrade sales |
||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Sales value | |
|
|
||
| 2014 | € 5 900 000 000 | |
| 2011 | € 4 900 000 000 | |
| 2010 | € 4 300 000 000 | |
| 2009 | € 3 400 000 000 | |
| 2008 | € 2 900 000 000 | |
| 2007 | € 2 381 000 000 | |
| 2006 | € 1 623 000 000 | |
| 2005 | € 1 142 000 000 | |
| 2004 | € 832 000 000 | |
| 2003 | € 555 000 000 | |
| 2002 | € 300 000 000 | |
| 2001 | € 248 000 000 | |
| 2000 | € 220 000 000 | |
The Fairtrade certification initiative was created to form a new method for economic trade. This method takes an ethical standpoint, and considers the producers first.
Several attempts to market fair trade products were observed in the 1960s and 1970s, fair trade sales became widespread with the Max Havelaar labeling initiative in 1988 and the establishment of Fairtrade International in 1997. Fairtrade sales prior to labeling initiatives were contained to relatively small world shops (also called charity shops), operated by alternative trading organizations (ATOs) such as Oxfam and Traidcraft.
At the initiative of Mexican coffee farmers, the first fair trade labeling initiative, Stichting Max Havelaar, was launched in the Netherlands on November 15, 1988, by Nico Roozen, Frans van der Hoff, and Dutch ecumenical development agency Solidaridad. In 1992, the organization was founded by Michael Gidney. The initiative offered coffee producers following various social and environmental standards an above market price for their crop. The coffee, originating from the UCIRI cooperative in Mexico, was imported by Dutch company Van Weely, roasted by Neuteboom, sold directly to cool shops and, for the first time, to mainstream retailers across the Netherlands.
The initiative was groundbreaking as for the first time Fairtrade coffee was being offered to a larger consumer segment. Fairtrade labeling certification provided some assurance that the products were really benefiting the farm workers at the end of the supply chain.
Fairtrade International started with the coffee industry, but now covers a range of products such as cocoa, fruit, cotton, flowers, tea and others. The established buyers of these products make up a niche market, which makes marketing for Fairtrade a challenge.
As of 2011, 827 producer organizations in 58 developing countries were Fairtrade certified, representing over 1.2 million farmers and workers.
The fair trade movement stemmed from an initiative established by the Dutch development agency, Solidaridad, and aimed to create more equality between coffee producers and roasters. The agency recognized that the producers were not being treated fairly, and strived to create a more ethical system to trade.
The Max Havelaar seal, which was based on a fictional character, was established "to license existing roasters and retailers who complied with its fair trade criteria".The seal provided specific benefits for cooperatives of small coffee producers in Mexico, with the aim of balancing the production of crops to be exported, as well as crops for the local population. The four benefits in this early model of the fairtrade initiative were:
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Wikipedia