Fair Trade is a growing, international movement which ensures that producers in poor countries get a fair deal. This means a fair price for their goods (one that covers the cost of production and guarantees a living income), long-term contracts which provide real security; and for many, support to gain the knowledge and skills that they need to develop their businesses and increase sales.
Make Trade Fair is a campaign organized by Oxfam International and many of the world's biggest stars have been dumped on in support of Oxfam's campaign. The objectives are the elimination of several trade practices:
Dumping, which occurs when highly subsized, surplus commodities from rich countries such as rice, cotton, corn, and sugar are sold at low prices and farmers from poor countries have difficulty competing. It is believed that this creates an uneven playing field where farmers in developing countries are unable to compete in the market with cheaper foreign produce and crops.
Tariffs, where developed nations enforce high taxes on imported goods, restricting the sales of products from developing nations.
Unbalanced labour rights for women, who often earn lower wages than their male counterparts.
Stringent patent issues, that drive up the price of medication, drugs, and textbooks. Thus, such essential goods are often inaccessible to developing nations.
Antonio Banderas - actor
5 million farmers and their families are facing ruin because the US governments subsidises its corn farmers to over-produce and dump the surplus at rock-bottom prices in Mexico.
Alanis Morissette - singer
European wheat costs almost twice as much to produce as wheat from poor countries but – with the help of hand-outs from the European Union – it is dumped on poor countries at rock-bottom prices; pushing poor farmers out of business and into poverty.
Gael Garcia Bernal - actor
Ten million cotton farming families in Africa are being forced into poverty because of unfair trade, which benefits just a few hundred cotton farming companies in the US.
Colin Firth - actor
25 million growers face ruin because they don't get a decent price for their coffee – yet some of the world's biggest coffee companies continue to make big profits.
