Is large-scale fair trade possible ?
By Ronan Le Velly
The article presents the changes in the nature of the market relationship that are induced by the expansion of fair trade. It shows that the increase in outlets leads to challenging working with “small producers”, the payment of a “fair price” that cannot be totally disconnected from market forces, and the rising impersonality of the producer-consumer relationship. Several types of fair trade on several scales are possible. The transition from a direct chain to an intermediated chain and then to a labelled chain increase the efficiency of trade but is accompanied by less opposition to the characteristics that fair trade activists attribute to the conventional market
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