Buying Fairtrade sugar, tea, coffee, chocolate, bananas and other fruit, flowers, cotton, or anything else is a way of helping the people who produce our food and other things we buy to be paid enough to live on. In some countries ordinary working people aren't paid enough to feed themselves and their families properly never mind provide a decent home, clothes, healthcare or education and the state doesn't provide them. Small producers around the world are at the mercy of market forces that are stacked against them
Fairtrade was set up to provide a more level playing field for small producers and to help them get a better deal. Paying producers a fair price means they can stand on their own feet in normal circumstances. Buying Fairtrade products is not charity. Fairtrade is necessary because normal global trade cheats small producers.
If you care about what's fair look out for the Fairtrade logo:
I'll be looking at Fairtrade again in the future, but if you want to know more now take a look at the Fairtrade Foundation website.
