What is Fair Trade Part II- Who OWNS Fair Trade?

Thanks for your thoughtful replies to last week's entry, What is Fair Trade.  To be honest, the range of perspectives represented via your comments have left me a little bit more confused.  Is Fair Trade a movement?  Is it a market?  A certification? A brand?  I wonder if it can it be all of these things in a meaningful and effective way....

All agreed that Fair Trade could be a powerful market-based tool for change, but then one commented that, "as a mechanism to provide a living for American retailers in America, it fails because it's not market-driven."  Some expressed that certification is an important tool to further Fair Trade, but it is merely one amongst many in the toolbox.  And although certification is just one tool, many question the validity of those who claim to be ‘Fair Trade' without some sort of consumer guarantee.

Some of you referred to Fair Trade as an evolution from harmful and outdated economic theories, and others pushed farther, asserting that "fair trade is a people's movement for change."

On a very related note, I was listening to a podcast of a panel called Who Owns Fair Trade (thanks to fellow Fair Trade blogger Jackie deCarlo).  I was hoping that this panel, hosted by London School of Economics and Trading Visions, would indeed lead me to the owners of Fair Trade and I could just ask them the very definition of what this is all about.  If only it was so simple.

The podcast features five prominent and diverse Fair Trade actors from three different continents, representing a wide, wide range of opinions within the Fair Trade world.  So who owns Fair Trade?

Katie Safford, a sustainability consultant at Price Waterhouse Cooper, takes the position that Fair Trade is two things - a movement, and a powerful consumer brand.  She argues that the shareholders of Fair Trade, its owners, are the Fair Trade businesses (from farmer or artisan to processor to sales outlet).  And that NGOs are mere analysts who can influence the business owners of Fair Trade.

Katie further asserts that Fair Trade must be big business friendly, especially in times of economic crisis, so that these risk adverse businesses don't divest from Fair Trade.

This viewpoint is refuted by Fair Trade business owner Kate Sebag, who says that Fair Trade can be owned by any, from Tesco's supermarket to the local primary school, from Ben & Jerry's to a tiny Scottish village. "So long as you obey the rules, you can buy into Fair Trade... but the question we should ask ourselves is, are the rules tough enough?"  She says that every owner interprets Fair Trade with different meanings.

Kate challenges the collective owners, the standard setters of Fair Trade, to be tougher so that the rules of the game do not squeeze farmers and artisans even during times of economic crisis.

This raises just the dichotomy or ‘multi-chotomy' of opinion around the core question of who ‘owns' Fair Trade.  Can be Fair Trade really be ‘owned' by any?
Longtime Fair Trader pioneer Pauline Tiffen says NO!, Fair Trade can not be owned. It is an idea.  A concept.  It evolves and is constantly being redefined. We can't own it.  And redefinition, uncertainty, and plurality of interpretation is important, because it allows for ‘more jostling' so that we can push Fair Traders to do more and deepen their integrity.

So it comes back to us, as Fair Trade supporters and consumers. We can ‘own' Fair Trade products, but can we ‘own' Fair Trade?   The market, the brand, or the movement? And if there are no defined owners, who defines Fair Trade?  Maybe it's simply each and every one of us.

Dear readers, I leave these questions to you to work out over the next week.

Listen to the podcast! And then share your opinion here.

[photo: www.monmouthshiregreenweb.co.uk]