Is Fair Trade Making Things Fair?

When I was in seminary in the mid 80s, I was one of the first and the few delving into the fair trade coffee market. I purchased two big boxes of coffee from Nicaragua and proceeded to hawk my wares all over the campus. (We didn't call it fair trade then. I forget the terminology we used.)

My intentions were noble-- to give coffee growers in Central America a fair wage for their labor, but as is now becoming clear things are more complicated. One of the things that bothers me about the political right is their insensitivity to the plight of poor farmers in other parts of the world. One of the things that bothers me about the political left is their naivete over how countries and their populations are lifted into prosperity.

In addition, our understandable desire to help those in need has led to unintended dilemmas. I have learned recently that with all the emphasis on fair trade coffee, farmers in Latin America are now wanting to grow coffee instead of the staples of rice and beans so desperately needed to feed the poor populations of their countries.

Michael Kruse (whose blog is a regular must read) writes about the practice of fair trade and the difficulty of the poverty solution in other countries. Too often we in the prosperous "developed" nations propose simplistic solutions to difficult problems. It is high time we start to see the world through the non-rose colored glasses that we wear.

Thanks to Michael who assists in taking those glasses away from us.

Check out Michael's post here.