Fair Trade or similar

[donkey_pie]

Do you think that activists for Fair Trade etc. are correct in what they say? I think that they probably are, but someone inforcing the fact that NESTLE ARE EVIL into your mind just isn't going to work. I also wonder whether some of them no what they are on about and are just doing it to feel better about themselves. Another point, if we stop eating/buying Nestle or other supposed 'bad' companies what will happen to the people that they give a small amount of money to? I think that true human nature is to want what is best for yourself, and not eating Nestle or buying Fair Trade coffee is not going to stop humans being the way that they are...
Any views?

[squealpiggy]

The Nestle campaign started in the 1970s because Nestle were selling milk formula to developing nations under the pretence that breastfeeding was bad for the infants. As far as I am aware the company no longer does this. However, old habits die hard and most activists aren't going to let a silly thing like "the truth" get in the way of some self righteous indignation.

There are some activists who dedicate a lot of their time for whatever cause, and fair trade is one of them, but I am highy suspicious of the majority who seem to latch on to cases as a kind of packaged rebellion. Fair trade is indeed a big issue, but companies that practise "fair trade" are often as guilty as compnies that do not in ruthlessly snuffing out any opposition, for example the Body Shop, a company that has very aggressively marketed their brand as the store in which fair trade, GM free and ethical products can be bought.

Read No Logo by Naomi Klein, but ignore the fact that she sems to think that it is possible to topple capitalism by spraypainting witty slogans on Gap ads.

[donkey_pie]

The thing is, is that many companies commit crimes like Nestle, all the time. Just because something isn't nestle is not gonna mean it is fairly traded. Thus... many people seem to be suggesting that we eat only fair traded products. I don't know about them, but I CANNOT afford to do this.

[notmarcie]

To make sure something is fairly traded or less 'evil' than Nestle I sugest you check out the Ethical Shopper book, or the Ethical consumer magazine. They analyse the 'fairness' and ethics of companies and give them a rating between 1 and 5. The rating covers everything from whether the company allows unions, pays overtime, uses child labour, uses forced labour, and in the cases of thing like coffee sugar and chocolate how much money the growers are paid for their crops, compared to how much the company and its middle men are paid.
As far as one company being evil more than another, well Pepsi and coke are both pretty bad, GlaxoSmithKline are no better or worse than Proctor and Gamble

Nestle does still have some questionable practises, which sadly didn't end in the 70s, they employ marketing techniques which contravene the WHO regulations. There was a Matk Thomas programme on the matter about 2 years ago and recent violation information can be found on http://www.babymilkaction.org/ as well a history


Nestles own information can be found http://www.babymilk.nestle.com/


The best thing to do if you want to buy fair trade or something that is more fairly traded is to have a gander at the literature I suggested and look out for the little F symbol on tea, coffee , banana , sugar and chocolate (the cash crops most likey to result in uder payment for farmers)

[squealpiggy]

One problem is that the World Health Organisation doesn't have "regulations" as such. Because the WHO has no legal jurisdiction it can only make recommendations which any somepany that puts profit before people will of course ignore. Trouble is that governments rely too much on these companies who can "punish" countries by taking their business elsewhere, so there's pretty much nothing that the affected countries can do.