Paying a fair wage

What is a fair wage? A fair wage is one that not only covers materials and labor cost, but also helps to improve the standard of living in the producer's family, cooperative and community. Fair trade organizations work with the artisans and farmers to provide markets for agriculture products, textiles, and handcrafts in developed nations. By reducing the number of often exploitative middlemen and keeping overhead low, the producers are able to earn a greater profit, allowing then to reinvest in education, health care and job training.

Providing healthy and safe working conditions

Sweatshops and child labor are a growing problem, particularly in clothing and textiles, and many popular agricultural products, such as coffee, cocoa, and tea, are grown under terrible conditions. Fair trade provides a healthy alternative to large-scale manufacturing and sweatshop conditions, where the producers' basic needs are often ignored because the majority of the profits flow to foreign investors and local elites who have little interest in the well being of the communities. In order to alleviate the inequality that exist in trade, fair trade organizations work primarily with small businesses, worker owned and democratically run cooperatives and associations.

Offering Producer's opportunities for advancement

By establishing small business and democratically run cooperatives, the artisans and farmers are the key decision makers in their businesses. They gain management skills, ?, and ?, while ensuring that they are given a fair price for their products. Organizers work with the producers by offering access to low interest loans, reduced raw material costs, and access to markets in developed nations, which result in a higher return on their labor and higher and more just prices for their products. The artisans and farmers will then decide how to reinvest their profits into their community. Producers have set up health clinics, job-training, education and literacy training, and child care.

Building long-term trade relationships

By building long-term, personal relationships with the workers, workers earn a greater return on their labor, and profits are distributed more equitably and often reinvested in community projects such as health clinics, child care, education and literacy training.

Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices

Fair Trade Organizations encourage producers to engage in environmentally friendly practices which manage and use local resources sustainably. Many fair trade organizers work directly with producers in regions of high biodiversity to develop products based on sustainable use of their natural resources, giving communities an incentive to preserve their natural environments for future generations.