Analysis from Legatum Institute questions Fairtrade policy
It has been nearly twenty years since the Fair Trade Foundation was set up with the aim of providing products that guarantee a better deal to the farmers in the developing world who are producing them.
Over 4,500 items are now sold as "fair trade" and the most popular of these are bananas, chocolate, coffee and sugar.
The term "fairtrade" generally applies to products made without child labour, in safe and fair conditions and with some of the profits going towards social and environmental development.
The executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, Harriet Lamb, told the BBC that fairtrade "makes all the difference" to farmers.
However the movement is not without critics.
Dalibor Rohac from the free market think tank, the Legatum Institute told BBC Breakfast that the scheme is very expensive for farmers to join, so those who might benefit most are excluded.
27 Feb 2012
- From the section Business