How fair can we go?

Each year, millions of tons of coffee, tea, cocoa and rice are sold, transported and purchased worldwide. Most of these raw materials are produced in the south but it is the North that provides the processing and distribution.
Prices of these commodities are imposed on producers in the South by future markets in the North...

Today, the dominant economic thinking is that "Free trade" works to the benefit of all. However, developing countries have increasingly impoverished in the past 40 years and many are being excluded from world markets. Fair Trade is a system created to combat this phenomenon of exclusion and the laws of single market.

Fair Trade aims to introduce moral rules in economy and trade.

On the scale of global trade, FT only represents 0.01% of world trade. Nevertheless, this share has been growing over the years and applies to 7.5 million individuals in 2008 that directly benefit from Fair Trade Certified production (according to Fair Trade Labeling Organizations).

Our conference at the American University of Beirut has highlighted the principles of Fair Trade as well as the activities of Fair Trade Lebanon.
Around 50 students attended and took part of the discussion. Doctor Zurayk has shared some valuable insights about the global movement of FT and its act of resistance in the Middle East, he added that many questions must be tackled: "Why is most trade unfair? How much power do we have as single individuals and consumers? Also, what or who stands in the way of changing the current global system?".

Fair Trade should become the rule rather than the exception.

The local NGO, Green Line for sustainable development, represented by M. Safieddine was also a participant and has emphasized on the need for civil society to be part of the trade rounds and have a say in order to apply pressure and protect the rights of small producers in this untamed globalization.