Why Do We Only Buy Coffee and Bananas “Fair Trade”?

by B. Traven

According to the Center for Global development, the market for fair trade products has grown sixfold over the last seven years, to $7 billion.

But why, asks Foreign Policy’s War of Ideas blog, is coffee pretty much the only thing Americans buy “free trade”?

One big reason is Starbucks, which agreed to start offering Fairtrade-certified coffee in 2000 and is now probably the largest single purveyor of fair trade products in the United States (UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s claimed to be the world’s top seller of fair trade foods in 2010. Though, again: mostly coffee and bananas.)

The CDG report also notes that it’s easier to monitor supply chains for commodity products that don’t need much processing rather than, say, clothing or footwear. And it’s probably easier for activists to target a big, highly visible chain like Starbucks that primarily relies on a single product — just tracking down all the stuff that goes into a McDonald’s hamburger would be exhausting.

Still, maybe we should start thinking about what other products would be good candidates for fair trade certification. Oil? Marijuana? Cucumbers?

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