For a long time, I’ve been unsure about that actual impact of the fair trade coffee scheme. Great sounding idea, but did it actually make a difference.
from flickr, by Christian Cable
Here is a quote from a Christianity Today article.
Fair-trade coffee isn’t a scam, but it is hard to find a development program that has attracted so much attention while having so little real impact. The most recent rigorous academic study, carried out by a group of researchers at the University of California, finds zero average impact on coffee grower incomes over 13 years of participation in a fair-trade coffee network.
The whole article is worth a read – it rates poverty reduction measures, where it’s important to be wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove!
Gold, silver, precious stones? 