I posted this link last month. But here it is again:
http://www.transfairusa.org/

Michael's concern is a valid one, indeed. But this is why Transfair
(and I am not affiliated with them in any way) is the indepenedent
not-for-profit agency that certifies products as fair trade. So the
most sure way to ensure that the product you are buying is fair trade
is to buy ones that are *certified* fair trade by transfair.

I am not as familiar with Tea trade as with coffee trade, but in the
coffee realm WTO has been dispensing "wise" advice to countries in
Latin America, Asia and Africa to grow more coffee. This has resulted
in overproduction of coffee, with supply greatly exceeding the demand.
This has allowed the coffee distributors to pay farmers as little as
they wanted, knowing that they had no choice but to settle for any
price they would give them. Interestingly, this did not result in
savings for consumers. Starbucks (before it started to carry *some*
fair trade coffee) used to pay $1.39/lb of coffee, which is above the
minimum of $1.26/lb required by transfair. The problem is that they
were paying this to the middleman, who paid a tiny fraction of this to
the actual growers. So the problem was simply that they did not want
to re-shuffle their procurement system. Fair trade simply insures that
the growers earn a living wage. This is not about luxury, folks! It's
a matter of life and death.

As far as teas, I believe it's a similar situation. And I don't think
it's exclusive to India. The In Pursuit of Tea folks report the dire
conditions in many areas of China, where farmers simply abandon their
farms and move to cities, because they can no longer survive with the
kind of income they are getting from the tea business. But there is
little fair trade tea from China. Rishi has some Yunnan black and
Puergh teas that are certified fair trade. But that's about that.
IPOT also claims to pay the farmers a fair price, but their teas are
not fair trade certified.

Speaking of which, anybody knows of any other retails that carry fair
trade certified Chinese or Taiwanese teas? I'd love to find out of
places where I can get such teas, if possible.

Best,

Maxim

Michael Plant wrote:

> >
> Yes, indeed. And so it should again. Question: Can we rely upon the fair
> trade dealers to truly support fair working conditions, or is "fair trade,"
> at least in some cases, a marketing ploy? I think Ripon has some
> interesting insights and observations in this area, and I wish he were here
> to share them.
>
> Michael