introduction: the policy trajectory of fair trade

Journal of International Development

J. Int. Dev. 21, 985–1003 (2009)

Published online in Wiley InterScience

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.1633

POLICY ARENA

INTRODUCTION: THE POLICYTRAJECTORY OF FAIR TRADE

ELEANOR FISHER*

Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, UK

Abstract: This paper provides a selective review of literature on fair trade and introduces

contributions to this Policy Arena. It focuses on policy practice as a dynamic process,

highlighting the changing configurations of actors, policy spaces, knowledge, practices

and commodities that are shaping the policy trajectory of fair trade. It highlights how recent

literature has tackled questions of mainstreaming as part of this trajectory, bringing to the fore

dimensions of change associated with the market, state and civil society. Copyright # 2009

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: fair trade; policy; literature review

1 INTRODUCTION

Fair trade1 is an orientation that seeks greater equity in international trade by creating

closer linkages between consumers and producers in the geopolitical North and South.

From small beginnings as an alternative movement selling craft items through outlets such

as charity shops, fair trade products have become widely available to consumers in Europe

and the United States. While sales remain small in global terms, market growth has been

phenomenal: to give a headline figure, worldwide retail value of fair trade is estimated to

have been 2.9 billion Euros in 2008, with overall sales growing at 22 per cent per annum.2

To have achieved such growth, fair trade has incorporated a growing range of products,

systems for standards and certification, new actors, new political and organisational

*Correspondence to: Eleanor Fisher, School of the Environment and Society, Swansea University, Swansea, SA28PP, Wales, UK. E-mail: [email protected] term ‘fair trade’ is used to refer broadly to the movement and markets; ‘Fairtrade’ refers to products certifiedby Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International.2Press release, 8th June 2009, Fairtrade Foundation. http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_releases_and_statements/jun_2009/global_fairtrade_sales_increase_by_22.aspxf. Date accessed: 25th June 2009.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

986 Introduction

alliances, and increasingly complex governance arrangements. This has led academics to

argue that it is at an important juncture in its history (Raynolds andMurray, 2007: p. 233); a

juncture that exposes contradictions between philosophy and practice, principles and

political economy (Renard, 2005: p. 426). The question of what direction fair trade is

taking from this juncture has contributed to substantial academic debate regarding the

ability of the market to generate social equity.

This paper provides a selective literature review of recent debates on fair trade, considers

why these debates are relevant for policy, and introduces the articles in this Policy Arena.3

Each author was asked to reflect on the direction fair trade is taking and to identify policy

issues from the perspective of their research. Focussing on policy in the context of fair trade

is an interesting challenge because it has developed from a market-oriented social movement

rather than being driven by development actors who place policy prescriptions at the heart

of their way of operating, including governments and multilateral institutions. This is

changing rapidly with greater political legitimacy, state support and business development,

but nonetheless in fair trade we see a contemporary field of development policy whose

roots have been shaped by a diverse range of consumer-activists, socially oriented

businesses, charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), amongst others.

Clearly this has implications for how one identifies and captures questions of policy. The

approach adopted here moves away from an abstract lineal model of the policy process

(from formulation to implementation), instead placing emphasis on policy practice as

dynamic and multilayered (see McGee, 2004; Arce, 2009). This encompasses the actors

who frame and implement policy, the policy spaces within which they are situated, and the

knowledge through which policy is generated (ibid. 8–11). Here we include not only policy

spaces, actors and knowledge flows, as McGee does, but also situated practices and

commodities, to provide an optic for understanding the everyday politics and practices of

actors engaged in fair trade.

2 THE SOLIDARITY ECONOMY AND RELATIONS OF TRUST

Studies often locate the roots of fair trade in charity work and political activitism of the

1950s and 1960s (e.g. Brown, 1993; Tallontire, 2006; Raynolds and Long, 2007). Recent

historical research on the British fair trade movement questions this chronology; arguing

that it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that NGOs started to connect international trade

and development to the shopping choices of consumers, and to develop business models

recognisable as ‘fair trade’ (Andersen, 2009b). Research has also emphasised the

autonomous development of fair trade in different parts of the world (Low and Davenport,

2005b). Nonetheless, despite variations in chronology and the role accorded different

actors, there is broad agreement that the fair trade movement developed in the second half

of the twentieth century.

The movement grew up seeking to address the unfair terms of trade for small-scale

producers in developing countries. Narratives that informed early thinking on fair trade are

embedded within development ideas of the 1970s and 1980s. This thinking is captured by

3The articles were first presented at a seminar convened by the Welsh Network of Development Researchers, astudy group of the Development Studies Association, on the 9th May 2008: ‘Fair Trade, Governance and SocialJustice’. Financial support for the seminar was from the Welsh Assembly Government’s International SustainableDevelopment and Wales for Africa Programme, to which we are grateful. Thanks are also due to the co-contributors and two anonymous reviewers for comments.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 21, 985–1003 (2009)

DOI: 10.1002/jid

The Policy Trajectory of Fair Trade 987

Brown (1993) and Coote (1992) who both outline a global policy space in which discourses

on the free market, as a pillar of the new world order, serve to obscure the trade barriers,

subsidies, forced liberalisation and forms of protectionism that historically enabled the

developed world to prosper at the expense of developing countries and peasant farmers.

The fair trade movement was particularly enraged against the General Agreement on

Tariffs and Trade (GATT; and post 1995, theWorld Trade Organisation), which was seen as

a mechanism for perpetuating structural inequalities and dependency in the international

trading system.4

It is against this background and the context of narratives on trade inequalities that a

policy space started to be created for ‘alternative’ trade. Some have placed consumer

practice (the individual) at the heart of this development (e.g. Nicholls and Opal, 2005),

while others remind us of the importance of NGO actors (the collective) in shaping the

movement (e.g. Andersen, 2009b; cf. Barnett et al., 2005; Andersen, 2009a; Malpass et al.,

2007). Broadly, however, in the North fair trade emerged as a social movement that sought

to generate redistributive justice for poor producers in developing countries through the

market, rather than the state (Wilkinson, 2007). In the South it is linked to a range of older

traditions seeking producer empowerment, such as the Khadi movement in India or the

Catholic Church’s liberation theology and the co-operative movement in Latin America

(Low and Davenport, 2005b; Arce, this volume).

Historically, the term ‘alternative’ (or ‘solidarity’) characterised this type of trade, although

today the term ‘fair’ is common. As Renard (2003: p. 89 citing IFAT n.d.) describes:

‘‘‘alternative’’ was used to denote difference. Alternative trade operates under a different set of

values and objectives than traditional trade, putting people. . .before the pursuit of profit’.

Buying alternative trade products represented a commitment to a political cause and expressed

shared values, typically situated in the personalised relations that infused the policy spaces of

fair trade, creating long-term partnerships between alternative trade organisations (ATOs) and

producer co-operatives. The guarantee that producers received a fair price and other benefits

from fair trade relied on trust and self-regulation fromwithin the fair trademovement (Renard,

2005: p. 422), enabling trade networks to develop in order to circumvent the corporate sector.

These networks have been characterised by Reed (2008) as based on the social economy value

chain, oriented to social goals rather than profit maximisation.

On the face of it the fair trade movement offered a radical new development agenda.

However, the discourse of redistributive justice, rather than rights and entitlements, has

been characterised as traditional (Wilkinson, 2007), as are ideas concerning the nature of

development based on modernisation (Arce and Fisher, 1999: p. 63). Furthermore, the

development of fair trade from producer co-operatives builds on long established traditions

and broader links to church or state in developing countries (see Arce, this volume; Fisher,

1997; Leutchford, 2006). Against this background, some authors see fair trade as

embodying neo-liberal solutions to problems with trade, working within an efficient

4From 1947/1948 GATT was the main platform for discussion and negotiation over the rules and standards ofworld trade (except for communist countries). The WTO was created in 1995, replacing GATT as the maininternational body for trade negotiations, to administer multilateral agreements defining the rules of internationaltrade between its member states, with the primary mission of reducing international trade barriers. GATTwas notdesigned to address the problems of developing countries (which is why the United Nations Conference on TradeAnd Development was initiated in 1964) and until the 1980s developing countries were largely excluded fromGATT negotiations. This changed with the ‘Uruguay Round’ of trade talks, which started in 1986, whose agendareflected priorities from developing countries, and the current ‘Doha Development Round’, which started in 2001,whose agenda focuses on development. See Green (2008) and Stiglitz and Charlton (2005) for analyses of theconsequences of these rounds for developing countries.


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988 Introduction

capitalist system (e.g. Nicholls, n.d.; cf. Lockie, 2008; Dolan, 2009), while others

emphasise its social policy reform orientation (e.g. Jaffee, 2007).

Jaffee (2007) has argued that the different historical roots of fair trade, between

development activism and reform-oriented charity, set the stage for future tensions in the

fair trade movement. In the early phase of the policy trajectory of fair trade, until the late

1980s, these tensions were buried with emphasis placed on building relations between a

diverse set of actors, generating a different product market, circulating fair trade

commodities and extending knowledge of trade justice issues through fair trade campaigns.

This emerged as a very successful strategy in growing a market for fair trade and

developing ways to convey messages about trade justice.

3 CERTIFICATION AND CHANGE TO THE MOVEMENT

Change to the fair trade movement and market in the late 1980s and into the 1990s

transformed the policy spaces occupied by fair trade, introducing new actors, products,

commodities flows, knowledge and power relations. This period has been well documented

in the literature and perspectives differ, however the introduction of fair trade certification

through standards and labelling, which began with Max Havelaar in 1988, is identified as

critical (Moore, 2004; Tallontire, 2006).5 The entry of food products into fair trade started

with fair trade coffee in the late 1980s, intended to boost the livelihoods of small-holder

coffee farmers who had been exposed to years of low and unstable coffee prices. The

professionalisation of ATOs and of world shops is also seen as significant to processes of

change (Littrell and Dickson, 1999).

Linked to these changes, regional and international networks became established

between importers/traders, activist groups and retail outlets. These networks included the

European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) in 1987, the International Fair Trade Association

(IFAT [now known as the World Fair Trade Organisation, WFTO]) in 1989, and the

Network of European World Shops (NEWS) in 1994. Later, in 1998, FLO, IFAT [WFTO],

NEWS and EFTA created an umbrella organisation, FINE, to provide strategic leadership

within the fair trade movement, as it continues to do today through, for example, the

Fairtrade Advocacy Office.6 These changes are described by Wilkinson (2007) who argues

that theymarked a more strategic approach within the fair trade movement, creating greater

homogeneity in discourses and advocacy, and contributing to institutional convergence as

diverse networks and groups become aligned with one another (cf. Gendron et al., 2008).

Strategic leadership by bodies such as FINE and the WFTO is significant in driving

the policy trajectory of the fair trade movement in the North, providing it with a collective

voice that is a powerful asset for consolidating local campaigns, bringing fair trade groups

5In 1997, the different national standard-setting and certification organisations that grew up after 1988 joined tocreate the Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) to make fair trade criteria uniform, improveinspection and certification processes, and register co-operatives belonging to fair trade labelling. This was later tosplit into FLO-I, the standards-setting body that worked with organisations to promote fair trade, and FLO-Cert,the independent certification company. FLO is composed of 24 organisations (19 labelling initiatives, 3 producernetworks and 2 associate members) (http://www.fairtrade.net).6The Fairtrade Advocacy Office of FINE was established in 2004 to co-ordinate the advocacy activities of FLO,WFTO, NEWS and EFTA. Its objectives include ensuring dialogue between the Fairtrade movement and politicaldecision-makers, taking forward a position on Fairtrade and trade justice, and providing information (http://www.fairtrade-advocacy.org: date accessed: 29 June 2009).


DOI: 10.1002/jid


together, gaining political support, generating knowledge and debate and enhancing market

relations.

The relation between fair trade and the market acquired a more sophisticated dimension

through third party certification; for fair trade products it meant that the fair trade label

could be placed on the packaging of any brand, certifying that production had satisfied the

conditions of fair trade. Sceptical consumers could be reassured that Fairtrade guarantees

are certified according to external verification using industrial norms and fixed standards

(Raynolds, 2002: p. 414). This enabled products to be distributed through corporate retail

circuits and sold in supermarkets rather than specialised shops. Indeed, participation by

corporate retailers was courted by the fair trade movement in order to try to expand the

market, increase sales and benefit larger numbers of producers (Reed, 2008). Such change

framed the creation of new northern markets for fair trade and introduced its acceptability

for consumers who might not otherwise identify themselves as ‘activists’ or ‘alternative’.

This process has been characterised as one whereby fair trade became an option within the

market rather than an alternative outside (Renard, 2003: p. 90).

Certification of products later sold by corporate retailers did not spell the end of ATO

dominated fair trade networks. Some remained outside FLO for various reasons, including

self-exclusion or because certification did not extend to handicrafts. Many ATOs became

linked through a global network, the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO [formally

IFAT]).7 What emerged were two distinct strategies for fair trade distribution: certification

of fair trade products distributed through non-fair trade retail channels, and a grouping of

ATOs that had their own business models and centralised distribution and marketing

strategies, with a label as assurance that member organisations are 100 per cent fair trade

(Gendron et al., 2008). Today, however, there are increasingly complex linkages between

ATOs and the corporate retailers that blur these strategies (Davies, 2007), as shall be

touched on below.

Alongside change in the way products were certified and distributed, the fair trade

movement was given fresh impetus in the 1990s by high profile international campaigns for

trade justice and debt relief. These were underpinned by substantial dissatisfaction in the

way trade agreements were (and are) made to the disadvantage of developing countries,

dissatisfaction stimulated by negotiations taking place in international policy spaces on

world trade (Stiglitz and Charlton, 2005).8 Public attention focused on the World Trade

Organisation (WTO), as a significant new policy actor that came to occupy a symbolic

focus for protests against global inequalities, the excesses of capitalism, and processes of

globalisation (alongside institutions such as the IMF andWorld Bank) (Green, 2008).9 This

dissatisfaction culminated in protests at theWTO talks in Seattle in 1999 and marked an up

swell in support for international development initiatives and social movements, which

continues through platforms such as the World Social Forum.10

7The WFTO is a global network of fair traders, which is limited to monitored organisations with 100% fair tradecommitment, who agree to a charter of generic fair trade principles drawn up in collaboration with FLO, which setminimal global standards for any organisation claiming fair trade status (http://www.wfto.com: date accessed: 29June 2009).8See footnote 3.9In practice there are also many other bilateral and regional trade agreements that are damaging to developingcountries (see Green, 2008).10The World Social Forum provides an annual forum for debate on alternatives to neo-liberalism and economicforms taken by globalisation.


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990 Introduction

Gendron et al. (2008: n.d.) argue that fair trade is the ‘emblematic figure of this new

generation of social movements’, one which is becoming institutionalised in ways that

should not be seen merely as ‘degraded social action’ but rather as an ethical point of

reference fixing the standards of social responsibility for corporations (cf. Wright and

Middendorf, 2008). While also positive about the value of fair trade for democratic

processes, Dine and Shields (2008) temper what they refer to as triumphalism at the

success of mobilised internationalist voices in integrating civil society’s concerns into

corporate decision making, with the warning that recent changes (e.g. a proliferation of

fair/ethical labels) may dilute the credibility of fair trade and undermine the moves towards

democracy that the fair trade movement represents (ibid. 186).

In the late 1980s and 1990s new actors entered the policy space for fair trade in the form

of certification and standard-setting agencies, and corporate retailers, as well as a growing

number of producer co-operatives, and more strategic advocacy networks. Established

actors, such as ATOs and world shops, became professionalised and used innovative

marketing strategies to extend knowledge about fair trade and encourage uptake of

Fairtrade products by Northern consumers. These processes set the scene for changes in

power dynamics and the entry technocratic knowledge, such as associated with standards

and certification, which has led to debate over whether fair trade policy spaces will be

embodied by corporate actors in ways that impose rules and power relations that are

detrimental to the transformative potential of fair trade for producers in the south (Renard,

2005; Shreck, 2008).

4 MAINSTREAMING FAIR TRADE

Fair trade’s policy trajectory has been characterised as a transformation from the

‘alternative’ to the ‘mainstream’ (Tallontire, 2006), as it incorporates conventional

business norms, practices and institutions (Raynolds, 2009). This has enabled the range and

quantity of products11, number of producers and markets for products to grow

exponentially through the 2000s.

Economic growth could not have happened without the involvement of the corporate

sector, which has been actively courted by organisations such as FLO as part of its global

strategy for Fairtrade (FLO, 2008/2009)12. This has raised substantial debate over what

implications corporate involvement will hold for the fair trade movement and whether it

can negotiate tensions between political commitment to radical transformation in world

trade, on the one hand, and instrumental engagement with the market, on the other (Low

and Davenport, 2005a; Raynolds et al., 2007). Beyond erosion of fundamental principles,

threats from mainstreaming are seen to include: devaluation of the Fairtrade Mark; loss of

control by FLO under threat from involvement from large corporations; enforcement of fair

trade standards in ways that create further demands on producers (cf.Dolan, 2008) and, erosion

of eligibility criteria for fair trade certification (e.g. by including plantation labour where broad

goals of producer partnership and empowerment are not encouraged) (Davies, 2007).

11Including bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, flowers, fresh fruit, honey, juices, rice, spice and herbs, wine, tea,sugar, sports balls, composite products (e.g. snack bars, barbeques) and craft products. See www.fairtrade.net andwww.wfto.com for up-to-date details on products, producer organisations and market share.12An account of ‘how we took on the corporate giants to change the world’ has been written by the ExecutiveDirector of the Fairtrade Foundation, See Lamb (2008).


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Recent research has started to identify the processes of differentiation that are associated

with mainstreaming, with studies becoming more specific on how interactions between

different actors are affecting fair trade. To analyse these changes various typologies have

been used. For example, Doherty et al. (in press) identify fiveways fair trade products enter

the market, each associated with different types of company processes.13 In contrast, Reed

(2008) uses value chain analysis to identify four different types of fair trade business and to

analyse the risks and benefits of each (cf. Davies, 2007).14 This leads Reed to identify fair

trade with corporate licensees as posing significant risks both to established fair trade

actors and to the fair trade brand. This is particularly the case where corporate licensees’

use plantation production (cf. Barrientos et al., 2007).

While Reed sees the greatest risks coming from corporate licensees and plantation

production, Barrientos and Smith (2007) add complexity to this argument by underlining

how UK supermarkets’ are not bound by FLO regulations (i.e. suppliers label the

products). As a result the use of ‘own brand’ Fairtrade products can jeopardise standards

precisely because supermarkets are not licensees (cf. Friddell, 2007: Chapter 6).15 In a later

paper, Smith (2008: p. 9) adds to this analysis by underlining the differences in Fairtrade

value chains, not only between supermarkets but also within a supermarket’s different

product lines, which leads her to argue that the ‘greatest cause for concern, are

supermarkets which do not treat Fairtrade any differently than any other product line and

which abuse their dominant commercial position over all suppliers’.

In a similar vein, Raynolds (2009) and Raynolds and Ngcawangu (2009) explore

mainstreaming in the coffee and rooibos tea sectors, respectively. Although there are

differences associated with each commodity network, in both sectors they identify

‘market-driven buyers’ who pursue conventional sourcing strategies as the greatest

challenge to fair trade standards. Where this type of corporate involvement is present,

Raynolds (2009: p. 1091) argues that fair trade is being transformed ‘from a mechanism of

partnership to one of traceability’. Despite differences in conceptual approach, the work of

Reed, Raynolds, Barrientos and Smith highlights the extent of market differentiation

within fair trade and identifies the greatest threats to fair trade principles and brand coming

not from distribution of Fairtrade products through corporate retail circuits but from deeper

involvement by corporates in fair trade.

Corporate involvement in fair trade, together with the increasing complexity of fair trade

commodity networks and certification processes, presents significant governance

challenges. These challenges are the subject of the first contribution to this Policy

Arena. Anne Tallontire’s article: Top heavy? Governance Issues and Policy Decisions for

the Fair Trade Movement, identifies two inter-related forms of governance within fair

trade: governance of the value chain and institutional governance. In mapping out how

these forms of governance have emerged and interconnect, she asks how the growing

power of corporate actors in fair trade value chains can be counteracted. A policy response

by ATOs and the fair trade movement has been to increase the voice of southern actors

13These are: (i) branded fair trade products from 100% fair trade companies; (ii) branded products from fair tradeadapters where a significant part of their product portfolio is Fairtrade; (iii) line extensions from fair trade branderswhere they are large mainstream organisations; (iv) retailer own label fair trade products and (v) fair trade productsfrom retailers who only stock their own brand products (drawing on Davies, 2007; Doherty and Tranchell, 2007).14These are: (i) fair trade without corporate participation; (ii) fair trade with corporate retail participation; (iii) fairtrade with corporate licenseesl (iv) fair trade with plantation production.15See Smith (n.d.; cf. Renard and Perez-Grovas, 2007) for differences between FLO and the Mexican fair tradelabel, Commercio Justo Mexico, regarding how companies use the concept or the mark for a product.


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992 Introduction

within fair trade institutions. However, focusing on FLO, Tallontire emphasises the

diversity of southern agendas that FLO needs to engage with, and the way how FLO

standards themselves need to change to distinguish between relational and modular forms

of governance. She argues this could help lead a shift towards innovative business models

that can reshape market relations such that fair trade remains more than a market standard

dominated by the power of large corporations.

Just such a business model is the subject of Doherty and Tranchell’s (2007) study of the

‘radical mainstreaming’ of the Day Chocolate Company, which shows how an ATO can be

an innovative actor in its engagement with the retail sector, helping to strengthen

the transformative message of fair trade. ATOs remain important because of their

leadership in the fair trade movement, the fact they offer high standards and premium

prices to producers, and because they are committed to building long-term development

relationships and empowering producer groups (cf. Tallontire, 2001; Tiffen, 2002; Doherty

and Tranchell, 2005). However, they cannot increase volumes on the scale of supermarkets,

and therefore alliances with supermarkets become critical, as do business networks with a

range of actors including the media and DFID (see Doherty et al., in press).

The case of the Day Chocolate Company case demonstrates how an innovative business

model can be developed that involves alliances with the corporate sector that enables an

ATO to position its products in a now highly competitive market (cf. Doherty and

Tranchell, 2007; Guijt and van Walsum, 2008). Just how competitive is this market, even

when creative marketing strategies are used, is evidenced by the case of Cafedirect, which

is experiencing slow down in its market share (Doherty et al., in press). This case points to a

growing feature of the fair trade market, namely competition not just between ATOs and

the corporate sector, but also amongst ATOs that were previously united (Doherty et al., in

press, citing Davies, 2007).

Such competition touches on another aspect linked to mainstreaming, namely the

proliferation of different voluntary initiatives associated with ethical, social, and

environmental issues, with fair trade (and different fair trade labels) being one of many

concerns that compete for consumer attention. This issue is taken up by Pamela Robinson

in the second contribution to this Policy Arena: Responsible Retailing: Regulating

Fair and Ethical Trade. Robinson situates fair trade in relation to other forms of ethical

trade and corporate social responsibility and elaborates on the existence of different

certification initiatives and codes of conduct, considering how retailers have responded

to self-regulatory measures. Focusing on a banana supply chain she demonstrates how, even

where the supply chain is tightly integrated as in the case of bananas, voluntary initiatives fall

short because of supermarket pressure on prices, as well as wider buying practices.

Clearly mainstreaming has generated new policy spaces for fair trade associated with the

corporate sector, a process encouraged by some actors within the fair trade movement. This

has led to considerable success in growing markets for Fairtrade; success in which business

development and growth of market share is seen as the main means for fair trade’s survival

and for continued support for producer livelihoods. This is creating increasing

differentiation in the fair trade marketplace and is introducing competition—amongst

ATOs, between ATOs and corporates, and amongst corporates—which is reflected in the

way how ATOs and corporates use ethical and fair trade initiatives. This has brought to the

fore new power relations, business practices and governance challenges that carry very real

concerns for those involved in the fair trade movement that the value of redistributive

justice for small-holder farmers in developing countries has been lost in the face of

corporate power.


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5 ENVELOPING POLITICAL ACTORS AND THE STATE

Discussions on mainstreaming tend to focus on the business and market dimensions of fair

trade, and interactions between FLO, ATOs, corporates, consumers and related actors. Far

less academic attention has been given to the emergence of a different set of actors

creating new policy spaces for fair trade within state institutions, raising its political profile

and contributing to processes of mainstreaming. These actors include politicians and

civil servants, but also companies supplying goods and services to the public sector,

and caterers working within public institutions. It also links to civil society activists and

networks (such as the Fairtrade Advocacy Office) which have driven up the profile and

political legitimacy of fair trade through endorsement by high profile political figures (see

Wilkinson, 2007; Low and Davenport, 2008).16 This is generating new knowledge,

practices and power relations, which have the potential to further transform fair trade’s

policy trajectory.17

Growing state involvement in fair trade is particularly the case in parts of Europe where

it is being incorporated into wider public sector policies and purchasing decisions, as we

shall describe below, but it is also pertinent in the South. Wilkinson and Mascarenhas

(2007a), for example, argue that the state is part of the way that policy spaces for fair trade

are becoming reconfigured around new linkages within the South. Thus, in South Africa

production and certification of Fairtrade products has become associated with state policies

on Black Economic Empowerment (see Kruger and Du Toit, 2007; Raynolds and Ngcawangu,

2009); in Brazil fair trade has been incorporated into government policy discourses and

initiatives (Wilkinson and Mascarenhas, 2007b) and in Central America the development of a

fair trade label, Commercio Justo, has links both to the state and financing from the European

Commission (Renard and Perez-Grovas, 2007; Arce, this volume).

In Europe, the European Parliament has moved from considering fair trade an extreme

exception when debated in 1994 (Fisher, 1997: p. 113) to a position of support for Fair Trade

and Development (European Parliament, 2006).18 Predictably, given its wider mandate and

orientation in relation to international trade, the European Commission (notably sections

related to international trade and to public procurement) has been less ready to act although it

has recently provided direction for European Union support (European Commission, 2009).

With respect to Europe, it is apparent how civil society actors in the fair trade movement have

driven campaigns for greater political and state involvement within public institutions in

Europe, as evidenced by the activities of the Fairtrade Advocacy Office.19

At the level of national government, support for fair trade has not historically been

central to overseas development assistance, but donor agencies are becoming more pro-

actively engaged (OPM/IIED, 2000). For example, the British Department for

International Development (DFID) has provided ad hoc past support through loan

16For example ‘Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also personally welcomed the olive oil: ‘‘I’m delighted thatduring Fairtrade Fortnight, Fairtrade-certified Palestinian olive oil will be on sale in British supermarkets. . .’’’(Fairtrade Olive Oil offered as Economic Lifeline to Palestinian Farmers http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/february_2009/fairtrade_olive_oil_will_offer_an_economic_lifeline_for_palesti-nian_farmers_2_2_2.aspx?printversion¼true. Date accessed: 3 July 2009).17This section draws on Fisher, E. Bringing the South into the Public Sector: Linking Wales to Global SocialConcerns through Fair Trade, unpublished mimeo presented at XXII European Society of Rural SociologyConference, 20th–24th August 2007.18‘European Parliament supports Fair Trade, Strasbourg, 6th July 2006. Http://www.ifat.org/current/EPsup-portsFT.shtml Date accessed: 10 July 2006.19http://www.fairtrade-advocacy.org Date accessed: 3 July 2009.


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994 Introduction

guarantees, development education and capacity building. This support is modest20, but

has become more strategic through incorporation into policy to make international trade

work for the poor. This has recently included £1.2 towards the mainstreaming strategy of

the Fairtrade Foundation and FLO.21

Government support for fair trade is arguably strongest at local and regional levels in

Europe, being part of wider engagement in international and sustainable development (cf.

Evans, 2008). In the UK, Europe, and recently the USA, local government has become

enrolled in place-based fair trade towns’ campaigns.22 Malpass et al. (2007: p. 634) argue

that these campaigns are a different and significant way of practicing ethical consumption,

introducing ‘the importance of placed rather than seemingly placeless consumption of

fairtrade ideas and goods’ (cf. Low and Davenport, 2008). It has been argued that political

support for fair trade is evidence of success in the realm of consumer politics (Renard,

1999; Wilkinson, 2007; Shreck, 2008: p. 131), while Malpass et al. (2007) recognise this

political mobilisation as important, they suggest that place-based fair trade campaigns

bring to the fore the collective, rather than simply individual (consumer), espousal of fair

trade (cf. Barnett et al. 2005).

This leads to the next contribution to this Policy Arena, a policy briefing: Policy

Challenges for Fair Trade in Wales, by Jon Townley, Head of Programmes for International

Sustainable Development and the Wales for Africa Programme in the Welsh Assembly

Government. In 2008 Wales became the first ‘Fair Trade Nation’, an idea developed by the

Welsh Assembly Government and Fair Trade Wales (the Wales Fair Trade Forum), in

consultation with the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Fair Trade Forum. Townley

describes the Welsh Assembly Government’s contribution to this campaign and identifies

policy challenges for Wales as it seeks to make a meaningful commitment to fair trade into

the future.

The idea for the Fair Trade Nation campaign drew on the Fairtrade towns initiative and

builds on certification of individual towns/cities and counties in Wales by the Fairtrade

Foundation.23 Particularly interesting is the context to the political support fair trade has

received in Wales. Although local actions draw on wider debate on fair trade taking place

within government in the United Kingdom24 and elsewhere in Europe, and link to the

campaign to make Scotland a Fair Trade Nation25, they take place against a background of

devolution in which Wales is developing its own ways of engaging with issues such as

international development.26 In this respect, Fair Trade Nation status is not simply a

reproduction of the fair trade towns initiative on a larger scale, because it brings together a

20http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmintdev/356/35606.htm Date accessed: 3 July2009.21http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/feb_2008/dfid_announces_12_m_for_fairtrade.aspx. Date accessed: 3 July 2009.22The Fairtrade Towns campaign started in the UK and was extended to towns in Europe, and now the USA.23In 2003 the first Sustainable Development Action Plan was developed forWales. At the time theWales OverseasAid Group (Traidcraft, Oxfam, Christian Aid, Fair Do’s, CAFOD) asked themselves what are the levers of powerin Wales for international development, identifying fair trade and the sustainable development duty. Aftercampaigning to incorporate fair trade into the SD Action Plan, 3 years were spent discussing what a fair tradecountry might be like in ways that were achievable, measurable and meaningful (Townley, personal communi-cation 18 February 2009).24See Select Committee on International Development, Seventh Report. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmintdev/356/35603.htm Date accessed: 3 July 2009.25See http://www.scottishfairtradeforum.org.uk/ Date accessed: 3 July 200926The devolution settlement gives Wales’ only partial control over its affairs, with responsibility for internationaldevelopment remaining with central government. For the Welsh Assembly Government fair trade is a vehiclethrough which it can legitimately contribute to poverty reduction in the international sphere.


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range of components and situates themwithinWales as a country, embedding the campaign

within a legal duty to implement sustainable development and ensure the wellbeing of the

people of Wales.27 There is also a future aspiration to further localise fair trade by creating

new ‘direct’ links between Fairtrade producers and consumers, particularly betweenWales

and Africa—in terms of place to place connections, product development, market channels

and linkages to issues such as climate change.

The Fair Trade Town’s campaign has stimulated demand for public procurement of fair

trade products because it incorporates public purchasing requirements (at least in

Europe).28 Public procurement of fair trade products is growing rapidly within European

countries.29 However, because fair trade is based on social criteria, concerning the

conditions of production and trade, rather than qualities integral to the product, European

procurement regulations do not permit it to be part of the subject matter of a contract (see

Fisher, 2007; OGC, 2008; European Commission, 2009).30 This makes the many initiatives

that incorporate fair trade into public sector procurement particularly interesting because

they are pushing the boundaries of established practice and law; processes that one might

argue are also part of ‘mainstreaming’. Whether in the long-term public sector

procurement contributes to high fair trade standards remains to be seen, however, because

some companies supplying the public sector can be categorised as ‘market-driven buyers’

(Raynolds, 2009) or ‘corporate licensees’ (Reed, 2008), associated with the more worrying

dimensions of mainstreaming, as identified above.

A final issue that has been raised in discussions on mainstreaming is whether the state

has a regulatory role to play (Renard, 2005): this is occurring in France under pressure from

ATOs to ‘prevent the shift to mainstreaming from reducing fair trade to a niche market

segmentation strategy’ (Wilkinson, 2007: p. 235; cf. Renard, 2005). However, Laguna

(2009), who was involved in negotiations between Bolivian quinoa producers and the

French state, is cautious about the likely outcomes, arguing that while state-led regulatory

actions may have influence in the North this does not imply more democratic governance or

empowerment in the South. Whether regulatory actions can have an impact on corporate

behaviour vis-a-vis fair trade, as Robinson (this volume) explores, is a question that

remains to be answered, although some are sceptical (Reed, 2008).

State policies, political support of fair trade, funding for fair trade campaigns and

mainstreaming processes, state regulation and public sector procurement point to the

emergence of a different set of actors conferring political legitimacy and creating new

policy spaces for fair trade within state institutions and policy processes. It can be argued

that these processes are also part of the institutional and governance dimensions of

mainstreaming. Recent academic research has identified an affinity between the principles

of fair trade and the public good as embodied in public institutions with a democratic

mandate (Low and Davenport, 2008), or the moral duty of governments to support fair

trade (Philips, 2008). It must be borne in mind however, that tensions in the interfaces

between political commitments, the public regulatory environment and competing

demands for public budgets are manifest in theway the public sector (in Europe) adopts fair

27Government of Wales Act (2006).28E.g. that councils or similar bodies serve fair trade beverages in a certain percentage of meetings.29See The European Observatory on Fair Trade Public Procurement http://www.eftafairtrade.org/observatory.Date accessed: 3 July 200930Put simply, a purchasing officer cannot ask exclusively for fair trade products, nor can they specify that the fairtrade products that they do acquire must bear the FAIRTRADE Mark of FLO, or discriminate between differentcompanies or Fairtrade/ethical labels on the basis of fair trade standards.


DOI: 10.1002/jid

996 Introduction

trade. One consequence is that the public sector is not immune from the more worrying

market tendencies associated with mainstreaming. This could equally lead to a watering

down of fair trade standards and further threaten the movement, as it could to the

development of a state vehicle to maintain the core values of fair trade through ideas of the

public good.

6 PRODUCER EXPERIENCES OF FAIR TRADE

In discussions on the current policy trajectory of fair trade, a focus on institutional,

technical and business dimensions can loose sight of the people whose livelihoods are the

raison d’etre for fair trade—and for whom categories such as ‘producer’ (and ‘consumer’)

serve to diminish multifarious life worlds and realities. Understanding of how producers

engage with fair trade is distributed across case studies from around the world, which

provide in-depth and rich insights about fair trade within different localities. Although the

literature is weaker on longitudinal analyses, multi-sited and multi-product comparisons,

and, until recently, impact studies, an extensive body of knowledge has nonetheless grown

up about how people engage with the fair trade market and the ways they experience the

changes identified in this review.31

There is evidence to suggest that fair trade has significant social and economic benefits

for impoverished producers and their communities (e.g. Murray et al., 2003; Ruben, 2008).

However, nuanced views of the complex realities behind fair trade emphasise the need to

contextualise this impact in terms of processes that may not be so positive (e.g. Murray

et al., 2003; Jaffee, 2007; Raynolds et al., 2007; Bacon, 2005). Amongst other features,

limitations relate to fair trade’s relationship to wider processes of change and trade

relations that may undermine or otherwise subverted its objectives, including how it

engages with the neo-liberal economic processes that the movement criticises (e.g. Dolan,

2009). There are also questions concerning unequal power relations, inequality (including

gender), and processes of exclusion that may be buried in the practice and relations of fair

trade underneath discourses on partnership and equity (Jaffee et al., 2004; Friddell, 2007;

Guijt and van Walsum, 2008; Lockie, 2008; Bassett, 2009).

In this respect, discourses on fair trade are a highly selectivemeans to convey a system of

values and priorities regarding the need for social justice in world trade (Getz and Shreck,

2006), one in which there is considerable disparity between global assumptions and local

perspectives on fair trade in the South (Fisher, 1997; Lyon, 2006b; Berlan, 2008; Dolan,

2008; Shreck, 2008). These local perspectives reveal how far removed the world view

conveyed by fair trade marketing is from the lived experience, decision-making, agro-

ecology and social conditions of farmers and craftspeople.

This raises the question of how producers supplying products to the fair trade market

experience fair trade and negotiate the changes introduced by policies such as certification

and fair trade organic production, questions taken up by Alberto Arce in the final article in

this Policy Arena: Living in Times of Solidarity: Fair Trade and the Fractured Life Worlds

of Guatemalan Coffee Farmers. Arce uses an ethnographic approach to explore how the

changing dynamics of fair trade policies have affected a coffee producing community

living at high altitude in a volcanic area of Guatemala. His research traces how production

for the Fairtrade market feeds into the politics of producer networks at the local level;

31There are too many references to cite here. See http://www.fairtrade-institute.org/db/publications/index.


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politics that have been shaped by the wider historical dynamics of processes of land reform

and challenges to elite power through liberation theology and the co-operative movement.

A value of Arce’s contribution is that it shows that there is a process through which

power is distributed at the local level through the politics of fair trade co-operative

networks. Producers are not necessarily disempowered, they can have power, but the

distribution of this power has become associated with the commercial dynamics of the fair

trade movement and markets (cf. Dolan, 2008). Thus it can be argued that the potential for

empowerment leading to social welfare gains is becoming eroded under challenge from

processes of differentiation generated by the mainstreaming of fair trade. Such network

dynamics and power relations are not typically taken into account in analyses of the impact of

fair trade (e.g. Becchetti and Costantino, 2008; Ruben, 2008), which has policy implications

when considering how best to benefit producer communities and take into account aspects

such as gender relations, which have often been ignored (Guijt and van Walsum, 2008).

Certification processes imply power differentials that are closely linked to issues of

inclusion and exclusion. Renard (2003, 2005) and Goodman (2004) both argue that policy

spaces associated with Fairtrade certified products are not open and inclusive; with the

label of guarantee acts as a source of power for those who do the certifying, controlling

access through a body of rules that are the foundation of fair trade’s legitimacy. Using the

case of tea producers in Kenya, Dolan (2008: p. 289) focuses on these issues by analysing

what she identifies as a disjuncture between forms of technocratic management inherent in

auditing processes and the moral imperative of fair trade, arguing that there are hierarchies

and power relations inherent in the processes of knowledge production associated with

Fairtrade certification (cf. Arce, this volume). Therefore, she suggests, there is a need to

‘make explicit who possesses the power to define the terms of Fairtrade, that is who

possesses the power to determine the need of an ethic in the first instance, and subsequently

command a particular ethical vision as the truth’.

Change in the fair trade movement associated with how producers experience

certification and mainstreaming processes has led Renard and Perez-Grovas (2007) to

argue that there is a tension between two visions of fair trade: the vision of southern

producers, for whom it is an inseparable part of broader development strategies involving

solidarity, equality and transparency, and a vision associated with the dynamics of fair trade

in the north, in which pressure to increase sales volumes is driving integration with the

conventional market. This tension, they suggest, is contributing to a breakdown in

the consensus upon which fair trade was established, jeopardising its underlying ideals.

One can question the extent that there are simply two visions of fair trade (see Arce, this

volume), but there is a basic point that these experiences may lead southern actors to take

the fair trade movement and market in the south in new directions, possibly involving

countertendencies (cf. Arce and Long, 2000) to fair trade’s current policy trajectory.

New southern directions for the policy trajectory of fair trade, such as Commercio Justo

in Mexico and Guatemala may be a positive process involving situated practices and

collective action built on the important role fair trade has played in bringing producers from

different localities and countries together (Brown, 2007). They may however also involve

market-driven power dynamics, leading individual producers, unable or unwilling to meet

the standards required by certification to exit production for the Fairtrade market, or they

may generate more negative counter-tendencies to fair trade. A clear lesson for policy is

that the fair trade movement needs to understand the negative as well as positive processes

and wider contexts associated with fair trade at the local level, a point argued in a number

of recent studies (see for example Lyon, 2006a, 2006b; Jaffee, 2007; Shreck, 2008), and to


DOI: 10.1002/jid

998 Introduction

take into account that producer agency may not produce the policy trajectory Northern fair

trade actors intend.

7 THE POLICY TRAJECTORY OF FAIR TRADE

Though rapidly changing as part of processes of institutionalisation, fair trade has not

historically been framed by the familiar trappings of policy: prescriptive documents setting

out future courses of action, actors with responsibility for these actions (so-called policy

makers and implementers), and discourses about approaches, recommendations, and

lesson learning. It is, of course, possible to identify many relevant ‘policy issues’ but this

lack of policy framing is unsurprising given the way fair trade developed as a social

movement and alternative market for products, rather than through leadership from within

government or state institutions. Nevertheless it is important to consider how a field of

policy action is constituted and has been transformed; not least because of the

consequences it has for the lives of people for whom poverty is a daily reality.

Articles in this Policy Arena have focused on selected aspects in this field of policy

action related to governance, labelling and regulation, the politics of producer networks,

and localising fair trade through a place-based campaign. This has led to the identification

of a number of policy issues. Delineating aspects of the policy trajectory of fair trade has

enabled us to show how, within a policy space dominated by historical inequities in trade

relations, and perpetuated through the terms and conditions of contemporary trade in a neo-

liberal era, a social movement of diverse actors has sought to overcome global inequities

and make trade fair for southern producers as a practical counter-tendency to the excesses

of global economics, creating multiple policy spaces within which to develop new trade

relations and to challenge dominant discourses, regulatory regimes, and business practices.

Debates on fair trade take us beyond a description of the global flows of commodities

and economic logic to connect the market with people, their experiences and knowledge. In

so doing, they show that new spaces for policy can be democratically engendered by the

different interpretations people and organisations give to fair trade and its future trajectory;

however they also—increasingly—show that fair trade is not immune from interpretations

that are non-democratically engendered, which involve market dynamics that have the

potential to create and perpetuate global inequality.

The fair trade movement has been fantastically ‘successful’—if one measures success

through how a market has been created and continues to grow, messages conveyed, people

mobilised, and positive impacts on the lives of at least some producers. With this success,

however, have come processes of mainstreaming that have drawn into fair trade the very

business discourses, regimes and practices that fair trade has sought to challenge.

Alongside the market, mainstreaming includes governance dimensions within the state,

and the institutionalisation of fair trade as a social movement.

Unsurprisingly this trajectory has created tension in the fair trade movement, tensions

which have evolved from an inter-play in the policy spaces of fair trade between actors

demanding radical transformations in world trade, those who accept the reality of the

market but emphasise the need to introduce new socially oriented values, and those who

drive the instrumental integration of fair trade into mainstream commercial considerations.

It also reinforces differences between diverse Northern and Southern visions for the future

of fair trade. Within these interpretations is a long-standing contradiction that still

polarises, between self-regulation of the market based on non-intervention and the notions


DOI: 10.1002/jid


of solidarity through which actors try to build new global inter-connections that link people

beyond calculations of profit and capital accumulation.

Questions of whether and how the fair trade movement and markets retain the capacity to

generate social justice through trade relations will continue to spark sharp debate. The

processes that have contributed to mainstreaming have led some to argue that the policy

spaces in which fair trade is constructed are becoming increasingly homogenised and the

scope for actors to realise social welfare goals is diminishing in the face of an emphasis on

market expansion. This has meant that ‘business as usual’ within parts of the corporate

sector demonstrates a worrying direction for the fair trade movement, one which voluntary

standards appear unlikely to regulate.

Despite pessimism that visions of global justice and the power of practical consumer

action to create a fair world may be lost through aspects of the mainstreaming process, we

should not lose sight of the way that the diversity of experiences, knowledge and agency

that continue to exist within the field of action that constitutes fair trade, may create

innovative new linkages between the market, civil society, and state, which continue to

contribute tangible benefits to producer livelihoods in developing countries. Such linkages

are being explored as Wales carves a path as the first ‘Fair Trade Nation’ and are also

reflected in the way southern networks and markets are developing.

On a concluding note, if one considers the literature for which the bibliography to this

paper is only a small part, it is striking how the number of academic studies researching

different and multifarious aspects of fair trade from a wide range of disciplines has

burgeoned over the last decade. Within these studies there is a wealth of knowledge and

debate that, both positively and damningly, reflects on what fair trade is becoming, the

wider social, economic, and political processes within which it is embedded, and the way

how it engages with the lives of consumers and producers, amongst others. Whilst it would

be naive to think that academic research creates a body of evidence that transforms policy

and practice through easily identified pathways, it does beg the question of whether and

how academic knowledge about fair trade can be used to inform more critical reflection

within the fair trade movement about its future policy trajectory, challenging the ‘moral

authority of Fairtrade that silences critique’ (Dolan, 2009: p. 9). Without such internal

critique, the view that the fair trade movement has lost its direction in the face of corporate

power and neoliberal agendas becomes more prescient.

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