Walk through your nearby branch of Asda, and you are witnessing the benefits of a global market. One can purchase just about anything at super-low costs. Whether it’s spices from Indonesia or rum from Peru - it’s available throughout the year. This is by far the greatest time in the history of humanity to be a shopper! This has come about through intricate stock control and logistics, large scale production, strong competitive forces, and perhaps most significantly, the fact that most goods are sourced, and frequently manufactured, in second and third world countries.
That last point is rather important, and very controversial. While consumers are purchasing clothing, food, drink and other items located from poorer countries at rock-bottom prices, workers and business organizations in these manufacturing nations are often exploited in the process, and haven’t any true sustainable business model as they are at the end of a very long line of middle men who determine what they manufacture, how much, and how often. This long chain of middle men all demand their cut too - in the end there’s not a great deal of money left for the end-of-line producer.
Nevertheless, there is help for such exploited individuals and businesses. Fairtrade is a movement that attempts to empower such end-producing business organisations in the poorest countries of the world. It looks to banish the middle men, and renumerate the end-producer a just price for a product in a much more primary way. You may have seen Fairtrade items in your nearest super market. You’ll sometimes find they’re a bit more pricy, but by purchasing such ethical products - for example fair trade gifts - you will know the manufacturer is working in a sustainable business environment that doesn’t just pay them evenhandedly through much more direct revenue streams, but it also permits them to put this extra money into their business through higher earnings, which genuinely makes a difference to these poorer parts of the world.
