Fair Trade Tea Sales Volume

Fair Trade tea is a fairly different case, as it is not produced only by small-scale, independent farmers but also by large estates that use hired labor. In a sense, we should admit that we can't help only the laborers and set aside the land owners when certifying a tea plantation.

 The solution adopt for this situation has been to create the so-called Joint Bodies in the plantation. These Joint Bodies assemble and discuss the issues which affect the life and future of the laborer, for example, how to use the Fair Trade Premium, i.e. the extra amount of money that Fairtrade certified plantations get on top of the Fair price for their output. 

SALE VOLUME OF FAIR TRADE

YEAR

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

United Kingdom

806

1.089

1.421

1.854

2.839

Germany

155

157

155

155

163

France

31

52

109

181

279

U.S.A.

55

52

79

188

286

Netherlands

67

60

57

59

57

Switzerland

42

37

35

35

33

all others

110

76

109

142

230

total

1.266

1.523

1.965

2.614

3.887

Some beautiful examples of the many Fair Trade benefits are pointed out on Miles Litvinoff's 50 Reasons to buy Fair Trade motivating book. One of them refers to pickers of a Fair Trade tea plantation in Nigeria Mountains (India) who could give up work and have a retirement pension! Thanks to a wise use of the Fair Trade best. Tea is one of the Fair Trade foods for which FLO has developed a document with the Fair price to be paid (btw, new Fairtrade tea minimum prices have become efficient in February 2008, ranging from 1,20 to 2,00 USD/kg). 

 

When, after appraisal, the producer is find worthy of certification, the identify label is granted and can be shown by the product, so we all can recognize it! 

 

Heavy tea drinkers happen to be in Ireland, Poland and the United Kingdom, so it is no shock that the U.K. leads the world in Fairtrade tea use, as the table shows; a nice 6 % of all tea sold in the U.K. has been fairly traded.