...of fair trade

The roots of the idea of fair trade can be found in operations launched by churches in South America and Europe in late 1940.

Their aim was to provide relief to refugees and other poor communities, selling their crafts in the Nordic markets. Compared with the structures of conventional trade, these Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs) offered higher pay to producers in the developing world through direct trade and fair prices.

The certification of the goods of fair trade started in Holland in 1988, in response to plummeting prices on the world coffee market. Pro-stamp laws began shortly afterwards in Germany.

Today, 19 countries have their own rebranding initiatives, working with the same criteria under the auspices of the rebranding of fair trade.

Legends about the history of fair trade...
Some say that the Americans were the first to Ten Thousand Villages (formerly Aftovoithoumenoi Technicians) who began to buy embroidery from Puerto Rico in 1946, and SERRV started trade with poor communities in the south in late 1940. The first official shop "fair trade" which sold these and other items opened in 1958 in the United States.

The early years...
The earliest traces of fair trade in Europe dating from the end of 1950, when Oxfam UK started to dispose of the shops of handicrafts which they made Chinese refugees. In 1964 the Agency created the first fair trade. In addition, initiatives were in the Netherlands and in 1967 founded the import agency Fair Trade Organisatie.

The same time, groups of Third World from Denmark began to sell cane sugar with the message: "By buying cane sugar you offer to people in poor countries a place in the sun of prosperity". These groups have continued to sell handicrafts from the South, and in 1969 the first "Third World Shop" was launched. The World Shops (or shops fair trade as called in other parts of the world) have played a crucial role in the movement of fair trade. Not only are selling points, but is also very active in the campaign and to awaken consciences.

Decades 60 and 70...
During the '60s and '70s, Non Governmental Organizations (NGO's) and socially driven individuals in many countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America saw the need for fair marketing organizations which would provide advice, assistance and support to disadvantaged producers. Many such organizations Southern fair trade links were established and the new organizations in the North. These relationships based on partnership, dialogue, transparency and respect.

The goal was greater equity in international trade.
Parallel to this citizens' movement, developing countries organized international policy debates, as the second conference of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference On Trade And Development)-United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, held in Delhi in 1968 to convey the message "Trade Not Aid-Trade not Aid". This approach emphasized the establishment of equitable trade relations with the South, instead of seeing the North appropriate all the benefits and returns only a small portion of these benefits as development aid.

The development of fair trade (or alternative trade as it was at the beginning) from the late '60s and then was associated mainly with the development of trade. He grew up as a response to poverty and degradation of the South and focused on the promotion of handicraft products. The founders were often the major development agencies and sometimes devout agencies in European countries. These non-governmental organizations (NGO's), acting together with agencies in the south, helped in establishing Southern Organizations fair trade, organized by producers and production, to provide social services and made exports to the north. At the same time, growth of trade was also an industry trade solidarity. Created agencies to import goods from developed countries in the South, which was politically and economically marginalized.