pwhittle

Been thinking about the Fair Trade lark. We've got a new organic / Fair Trade supermarket over the road, and as ethically-minded people do buy tea / coffee there.
The thing is though, I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the cost of a normal box of tea went to the growers, so about 12p for a box of 80 bags.
A fair trade box is about £1.80. The extra is therefore 50%. This equates to a perceived increase to the growers of 60p - an increase of 600%. The farmers would therefore be able to feed their families - from their holiday home in the tropics.
Granted, there must be a small cost in getting the accreditation, but I can only see that most of this increase is profit for retailers? If it is, it's completely unacceptable, but I bet nobody (in power) is doing anything about it.
does anyone know about this in detail? Are there extra costs somewhere? Does a reasonable cut of the extra go to building schools etc?
I will continue to buy Fair Trade, as I believe it's better to do something than nothing, but I'd be interested to see some figures.

KiwiGTI

I boycott any store that promotes this sort of rubbish. Unfortunately it's a bit unavoidable.

There was a very good article a while back saying that fairtrade was a load of rubbish and actually did more harm than good.

Bram

"Fair Trade" I think the French farmers will be a bit miffed, they been getting supported for years. It keeps them in the lifestyle they been accustomed