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Fairtrade certification is a product certification system claiming that products with its brand meet certain environmental, labour, and developmental standards. Overseen by a standard-setting body, Fairtrade International (FLO), and a certification body, FLO-CERT, the system involves independent auditing of marketing organizations and, sometimes, producers. Companies offering products that meet the Fairtrade Standards may apply for licences to use the Fairtrade Certification Mark (or, in North America, the applicable Fair Trade Certified Mark) for those products. The Fairtrade International certification system covers a growing range of products, including bananas, honey, oranges, cocoa, coffee, shortbread, cotton, dried and fresh fruits and vegetables, juices, nuts and oil seeds, quinoa, rice, spices, sugar, tea and wine. These commodities differ in their locations of production and labor used for production and distribution. Retail sales of Fairtrade certified products have grown steadily over the last decade and are expected to continue growing but fairtrade certified products make up a relatively miniscule share of the global market for agricultural goods. As of 2011, just 827 producer organizations in 58 developing countries were Fairtrade certified and in 2014 less than €1 billion of the €5.5 billion shoppers spent on fair trade products actually went to fair trade producers around the world. 〔http://www.fairtrade.net/〕〔2014 Fairtrade Annual Report, http://www.fairtrade.net/annual-reports.html〕 The effectiveness of Fairtrade is questionable; and in some cases workers on Fairtrade farms have a lower standard of living than on similar farms outside the Fairtrade system. ==How it works== To use an example; Fair trade coffee packers in developed countries pay a fee to their country's Fairtrade organization for the right to use the brand and logo. Nearly the entire fee goes to marketing. Packers and retailers can charge as much as they want for the coffee. The coffee has to come from a certified Fairtrade cooperative, which pays certification and inspection fees. The importer is obliged to pay the exporter a base price which keeps the price from sinking below that level.It is sometimes higher than the going world price, but at times when coffee prices are high, it may be lower than the going price. There is also an additional “producer premium” (20c/lb for coffee). For a few products, like coffee, there is also a minimum price. For other products production by plantations rather than small farmers is permitted, and marketing is done by normal traders. The cooperatives or other Fairtrade certified firms incur additional costs including increased marketing costs, certification and inspection fees, and costs of conforming to the specifications. However, they can, on average, sell only a small amount of their output as Fairtrade, because of lack of demand, and must sell the rest as uncertified at world prices. Any deficit after paying these costs means a lower price for farmers, while any surplus from the premium price must be spent on “social projects” for “common goals” organized by the exporting cooperative rather than being an extra payment for farmers.〔Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International e.V. (2011), “Fairtrade Standard for Small Producer Organizations”, version: 01.05.2011_v2.1 p28; Fairtrade International. (2013). Coffee. Retrieved January 3, 2013, from Fairtrade International: http://www.fairtrade.net/coffee.html.〕 These may include the building of classrooms, baseball pitches, or the establishment of women's groups, for instance. Fairtrade farmers have to meet a large range of criteria on production: there are limits on using child labour, pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified products and so on. These incur costs, but farmers are not paid higher prices. The marketing system for Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade coffee is identical in the consuming countries, using mostly the same importing, packing, distributing and retailing firms, and only slightly different in producing countries. Some independent brands operate a virtual company, paying importers, packers and distributors and advertising agencies to handle their brand, for cost reasons.〔Davies, I.A. and A Crane, ‘Ethical Decision Making in Fair Trade Companies’, Journal of Business Ethics 45: 79–92, 2003. P84〕 In the producing country Fairtrade is marketed by only by Fairtrade cooperatives, while other coffee is marketed by Fairtrade cooperatives (as uncertified coffee), by other, non-Fairtrade, cooperatives and by ordinary traders.〔Mohan, S. (2010). Fair Trade Without the Froth - a dispassionate economic analysis of 'Fair Trade'. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.; Kilian, B., Jones, C., Pratt, L., & Villalobos, A.: 2006, ‘Is Sustainable Agriculture a Viable Strategy to Improve Farm Income in Central America? A Case Study on Coffee’, Journal of Business Research, 59 (3), 322–330.; Berndt, C. E.: 2007, Is Fair Trade in coffee production fair and useful? Evidence from Costa Rica and Guatemala and implications for policy. Washington DC.: Mercatus 65 Policy Series, Policy Comment 11, Mercatus Centre, George Mason University.; Riedel, C. P., F. M. Lopez, A. Widdows, A. Manji and M. Schneider (2005), ‘Impacts of Fair Trade: trade and market linkages’, Proceedings of the 18th International Farming Symposium, 31 October–3 November, Rome: Food and Agricultural Organisation, http://www.fao.org/ farmingsystems.; Kohler, P. (2006), ‘The economics of Fair Trade: for whose benefit? An investigation into the limits of Fair Trade as a development tool and the risk of clean-washing’, HEI Working Papers 06–2007, Geneva: Economics Section, Graduate Institute of International Studies, October.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fairtrade certification」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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