The fair trade logo signifies a way to shop for a better world.

By buying products bearing the Fair Trade Certified label when possible, you're voting with your dollars to help improve lives for farmers and farm workers throughout the developing world.

Fair Trade Certified products include:

• coffee
• tea
• chocolate
• fruit
• rice
• sugar
• herbs
• spices
• flowers

Know Your Fair Trade Logo

In the United States, TransFair USA, an independent, third-party certification organization, regulates fair trade standards.

Buying Products with the fair trade logo indicates that farmers are paid a living wage for their crops, workers are treated with dignity, and small landholders are part of a co-op or other democratic organization.

Strong Growth, Smart Business

Through fair trade certification, importers and retailers pay a premium price to farmers and farm workers who commit to grow and produce goods in accordance with rigorous standards. Those standards guarantee worker rights, community empowerment, and environmental sustainability.

Through sales of Fair Trade Certified products in the United States—which hit an estimated $1 billion in 2007—TransFair USA has delivered more than $100 million in additional revenue to farmers and farm workers in rural communities throughout the developing world. This number is steadily rising.

When small-scale farmers are paid a living wage, they can afford to feed their families, send their children to school instead of to the fields, and obtain healthcare. Many farmer co-ops use their income to establish community health clinics or help growers transition to certified organic farming.

For People and the Planet

A Fair Trade Certified label on a product ensures that a fair price is paid for the product, fair wages are paid to the workers producing the item, and monies are invested in the communities. Fair trade certification also means that farmers use sustainable farming practices, including composting, terracing, and reforestation. Growers use nonchemical alternatives to pesticides.

More than 80 percent of Fair Trade Certified coffee is shade grown. “Shade grown” refers to crops, usually coffee and cacao, cultivated in their natural habitats under the canopy of tall trees, allowing for less fertilizer use and more biodiversity.

Watch and Learn

Check out the video to learn how Alaffia is using fair trade to help their community.

Your Questions About Fair Trade, Answered

October is Fair Trade Month, but only about 55 percent of the US population knows what the term “fair trade” means. Here, we answer some of the most common questions about this ethical label.

What does the term “fair trade” mean?

Basic principles of fair-trade certification include fair wages for farmers, transparency and accountability, no child labor or forced labor, gender equity, ensuring good working conditions, respecting the environment, and improving the communities in which a product is produced.

Traditionally, fair-trade companies have supported cooperatives of small-scale farmers, as opposed to large plantations, each run by a single owner. Some certification programs no longer make this distinction.

“Within the growing sea of ethical labels, fair trade remains unique,” states Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of fair trade products in North America. “It is one of the only certifications whose purpose is to empower farmers and workers to fight poverty through trade and to protect the environment.”

In addition to Fair Trade USA, other fair-trade certifiers include Fair for Life, Fairtrade International, and World Fair Trade Organization. To determine if a product or ingredient is fair trade, look for the certification seal.

What type of products are available as fair trade?

Coffee, chocolate, tea (green, black, white, oolong), herbs and spices, honey, wine, shea butter, coconut oil, and cotton are among the most common. 

Are fair-trade products also certified organic?

Not necessarily. Certified organic products are produced without the use of toxic and persistent fertilizers and pesticides. About half of Fair Trade Certified imports are organic. Still, fair-trade certification does ensure that certain environmental standards have been met. These include the protection of water resources, agricultural diversification, the elimination of slash-and-burn agriculture techniques, reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and banning the use of GMOs.

How many farmers worldwide are involved with fair-trade practices?

More than a million farmers grow fair-trade products, and nearly 13,000 metric tons of fair-trade tea, herbs, and spices are sold worldwide each year.

Ascertaining if the products you buy have been sustainably sourced is getting easier as a host of organizations around the globe provide reliable certification for an increasing variety of foodstuffs.

Organizations such as TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring network) and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD)—working with conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Rainforest Alliance—have established networks of suppliers and strict standards to which those suppliers must adhere.

Sustainability Labeling

What Do Sustainability Certifications Mean?

Generally, these certifications mean:

• The products have been produced using sustainable, eco-friendly methods.
• The producers have been paid a fair price.
• The laborers along the way have been paid a fair wage and treated fairly too.
• The supply chain is transparent and democratically operated.
• The communities in which the producers operate get back a portion of the proceeds to help develop the region economically.

Label Endorsements

Look for labeling endorsements from these enterprises to be sure you’re getting food that satisfies not just your appetite, but your conscience too.

• Marine Stewardship Council

  Overfishing is a threat to many marine species and the ocean’s ecosystem. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) works to ensure that responsible fishing and aquaculture practices are used. You can find MSC-certified seafood suppliers in your area by using their website.

  ---

• Rainforest Alliance

  If you “shop the frog” you’re buying goods labeled with the Rainforest Alliance Certified green frog seal, a symbol of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Its mission: To conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior.

  ---

• Fairtrade America

  The Fairtrade America organization works to ensure sustainable production and farming practices, improved working conditions, environmentally friendly production, better prices and wages for farmers and workers, and transparent trade practices.

  ---

• Fair Trade USA

  Products that carry Fair Trade USA certification have been independently verified as being compliant with “fair” practices from farm to fork. The organization was founded in 1998 but split from the Fairtrade International organization in 2012.

  ---

Walking the Talk

Company websites are a great way to educate yourself about the approach a company takes to sustainability. Here are a few organizations with solid programs in place.

• Frontier Natural Products Co-op

  Iowa-based Frontier Natural Products Co-op has been purveying eco-friendly products since 1978. Today, under its Simply Organic and Aura Cacia brands, you can buy everything from angelica root to yerba mate tea. Frontier specializes in herbs, spices, foods, teas, and body products.

• New Chapter

  New Chapter offers a broad selection of products that are NonGMO Project Verified, International Certification Services-certified organic, and NSF GMP Registered. It has also achieved B Corp Certification, which denotes adherence to rigorous standards of environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

• Gaia Herbs

  In addition to its own farms in North Carolina, Gaia Herbs partners with other eco-minded growers and producers to deliver top-quality, sustainably produced products, including herbs, oils, extracts, and teas.

When I was a teenager, my grandmother would take me to the neighborhood Mennonite store in Ontario where I’d purchase worry dolls and change purses from Guatemala to give to my friends.

Although I knew I was somehow benefiting artisans 2,000 miles away, I soon ran out of gifts to purchase through alternative trade.

Decades and thousands of products later, the labeling, marketing, and advocacy initiative known as fair trade is seeing astounding global growth as conscious consumerism moves into the mainstream.

How Did Fair Trade Start?

When coffee prices plummeted in the 1980s, a priest who was exporting Mexican coffee to the Netherlands wanted to do something about it. He believed that labeling products that respected fair trade conditions would help them stand out in the global market. He called this effort Max Havelaar, after a character in a 1860s novel who opposed the exploitation of coffee plantation workers in the Dutch colonies.

Not only did labeling allow the mainstream coffee industry to buy into fair trade practices, it also gave consumers their first taste of an agricultural product under the fair trade label. Customers could now purchase fair trade coffee in conventional establishments, like supermarkets or coffee shops. Today, Fair Trade Certified coffee is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. specialty coffee industry. Fair trade has expanded well beyond coffee to include more than 30 product categories, including dairy, produce, apparel, and seafood, among others.

Investing in Change

An international fair-trade-certified labeling system later emerged, as well as Fair Trade USA—an independent, third-party certifier of fair trade products in this country.

While fair trade products now include everything from cotton shirts to vanilla extract, the principles remain the same—to ensure that:

• farmers in developing countries are guaranteed a minimum price for their harvest
• workers enjoy a safe working environment without forced child labor, harmful agrochemicals, and GMOs
• workers earn a living wage that will cover their living expenses

Farmers are also paid an additional “social premium” to invest in their community for such improvements as schools or wells.

What Is the Point of Fair Trade?

While critics of fair trade say that it isn’t the answer to the fluctuating world market and that it accounts for less than one percent of world trade, they may be missing the point: Empowering 1.9 million farmers, fishers, and workers in 71 countries to step out of poverty and invest in their communities can’t be measured in profit margins. To date, $1 billion has been contributed to Community Development Funds from fair trade.

A new Consumer Insights Report by Fair Trade USA shows conscious consumerism is moving into the mainstream. "Younger generations continue to lead the charge as they look toward their future, while bringing other generations along with them," said Paul Rice, founder and CEO of Fair Trade USA.

More and more thoughtful consumers are willing to pay more for ethically produced goods. And it seems that these days, they can have their espresso and vanilla cake and feel good about eating them too.