Born of Ideals, Constrained by the Market: The Ins and Outs of Fair Trade Certification
Foodthink Says
To address power imbalances in value distribution and ensure fairer returns for farmers and labourers, Fairtrade certification was established. For everyday consumers, spotting the iconic blue-and-green human figure logo on packaging signals that the product’s production and trade processes guarantee farmers and workers a voice and a greater share of the profits. Behind the label lies Fairtrade International (FLO), which sets the standards and assists small-scale producers in achieving certification. Today, Fairtrade certification generates a Fairtrade Premium of up to €190 million annually.
Foodthink previously published an article by Qin Yongjiang, Can Development and Fairness Coexist? A Brief Look at Fairtrade Certification, which offers a concise overview of Fairtrade’s history. It notes that “those who truly benefit are often senior managers well-versed in Fairtrade and governmental regulations, while the livelihoods of smallholder farmers—who occupy a disadvantaged position in power dynamics—see little to no improvement.”
How is Fairtrade certification actually implemented in China, and what internal challenges does it face? For this piece, we interviewed Joya, who spent several years working with Fairtrade International. The interview was conducted and the transcript compiled by Da Chunfeng.
– Interviewee –
Joya
Holder of a Master’s degree in Environmental Economics from France, she previously served as an economics lecturer for the Sino-French programme at Sichuan International Studies University and as the China Country Director for Fairtrade International. She now resides in Brittany, France. Certified as a European herbalist and vegetarian chef, she works in the culinary field by blending Traditional Chinese Medicine wellness principles with locally sourced organic European herbs. Her focus lies in food therapy, wellness, and creative vegetarian cuisine. She cultivates her own herbs and botanicals, forages wild plants, and specialises in phytotherapy.
– Interviewer –
Da Chunfeng
A free-spirited wanderer, forging ties across regions, seeking a settled life, and currently scouting for new grounds to explore…
Q = Da Chunfeng A = Joya
A: I did a master’s at a French agricultural engineering school. One of my lecturers happened to be the chairman of the French fair trade association, which is how I first encountered the fair trade ethos. After graduation, I was keen to join the fair trade movement, but there were no suitable openings. It wasn’t until a year and a half after returning to China that Fairtrade International started recruiting locally, and I finally made the jump.
Q: What exactly did your role entail back then?
A: When I first started in 2013, there were 13 agricultural cooperatives in China that had already achieved fair trade certification, with a few more going through the process. Up until then, European colleagues had been flying over to help these cooperatives secure certification. As demand for certification grew, the organisation realised it needed staff based permanently in China, which is how I came on board.
My main focus initially was helping farmers achieve certification. However, the ones seeking certification were rarely the farmers themselves; it was usually import and export trading companies. These companies wanted fair trade status for their own supply chains, which meant they needed their contracted farmers to join the system.
I would travel to the villages to get a feel for the local situation, explain to the residents what fair trade actually is and what the certification process entailed, and then guide them through the paperwork.
For farmers and cooperatives either pursuing or already holding certification, my role was to help them troubleshoot issues and pass their assessments. Fair trade standards are incredibly detailed, comprising hundreds of individual criteria. The assessment process begins once an application is submitted, giving farmers or cooperatives two to three years to progressively meet the requirements. Even after achieving certification, regular follow-up assessments continue. My job was to ensure they met the benchmarks at every checkpoint, which involved a great deal of facilitation and communication between individual farmers and across different cooperatives.
During that period, I also helped set up a fair trade tea growers’ support network in China, which ran regular training sessions for tea farmers and cooperatives. Whenever a cooperative identified a need for technical training, I would arrange for relevant experts to run workshops.
The other major part of my role involved bridging domestic supply with international markets. When overseas buyers were looking to source fair trade products from China, I would accompany importers and exporters on visits to the farms. I also attended both domestic and international agricultural trade fairs alongside the farmers to help them expand their market reach.
Q: You just mentioned that Fairtrade certification operates on a set of standards. Can these standards be adapted to the actual conditions of Chinese agriculture?
A: The standards cover three main areas:
First, defining what constitutes a smallholder based on farm size and economic income;
Second, requirements for specific production methods, prioritising environmental protection and minimising the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides;
Third, requirements for local cooperative structures and management practices.
Because there are such vast differences across regions worldwide, it’s usually very difficult to apply a uniform standard. The number of Chinese farmers and cooperatives entering the Fairtrade system is relatively small, and China joined later than other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Consequently, my work here hasn’t drawn much attention.
Furthermore, the international image of Chinese farmers doesn’t really align with the demographic Fairtrade typically focuses on. Unlike growers in South America, Africa, or India, Chinese farmers aren’t generally perceived as impoverished or in need of aid. I’ve frequently reminded my overseas colleagues that this just isn’t the reality here.
From an implementation perspective, many aspects of the Fairtrade standards don’t quite fit China’s context. Take the handbook chapter on “Fairness and Democracy,” a core principle of the system. The standard requires group meetings and voting for decision-making, which is a process many farmers aren’t accustomed to.
Guided by democratic principles, the original intention was to keep trader or import/export company intervention in cooperatives to an absolute minimum. Yet in China, the exact opposite is true: nearly all cooperatives seeking Fairtrade certification are led by trading companies. These traders don’t just play a deep role in the certification process; they often appear on the cooperative’s membership lists, something rarely seen elsewhere. These companies hold a monopoly over cooperative decision-making, and farmers are frequently left with no choice but to sell their certified produce to that single company.
The standards regarding women and children are also quite sensitive. According to our operational guidelines, we’re not allowed to casually photograph children when visiting farms; prior consent is required. But in China, it’s completely normal for children to help their families with farm work during busy seasons. So if external auditors come for an inspection, we actually advise farmers to keep the children away. Some auditors, unfamiliar with local culture, tend to view this through a European lens and might label it as child exploitation.
We understand the rationale behind these clauses. For instance, severe child labour exploitation is indeed a reality on some banana plantations, which makes it hard to relax child protection standards. Given the huge variations between countries and regions, it’s impractical to draft special clauses for every location. Our colleagues in China do relay domestic conditions to the international body, but I haven’t seen any concrete adjustments yet.
– Background –
In the Global North, national Fairtrade organisations are predominantly based in developed countries. They typically oversee import and export trading companies, focusing mainly on the sale of Fairtrade products.
The Global South, by contrast, operates on a regional basis. For instance, bodies covering Southeast Asia, China, India, and Sri Lanka are grouped under the Asia & Pacific Producers Network (NAPP), which primarily focuses on producing Fairtrade-certified agricultural goods.
One notable exception is the Pacific region, which comprises both producing and consuming nations.
To obtain certification, an initial fixed fee must be paid. Once certified sellers become members of the organisation, an annual fee is charged as a percentage of their sales revenue. These funds support the operations of national Fairtrade bodies, with the exact amount determined by sales volume.
A: At the time, my team primarily worked across the Asia-Pacific region, where I observed a comparatively high level of acceptance for fair trade in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. This may stem from historical factors. For instance, many people in India are English-speaking and tend to adopt a more Western mindset, making principles such as “democratic cooperation” easier for them to embrace.
Furthermore, even when held to the same standards, farmers in these regions tend to provide feedback much more directly. The Chinese and Indian farmers I worked with often displayed quite different dispositions. In India, farmers are typically quite forthright in voicing their opinions. By contrast, their Chinese counterparts tend to be more reserved and observant; they rarely jump in to comment straight away and can struggle to assert themselves within the structures of “democratic cooperation”.
There are times when farmers are asked to give media interviews to share their stories. Farmers in those countries generally possess a greater sense of agency and a clear voice when it comes to shaping cooperative standards. They have typically received a level of formal education, are comfortable communicating in English, and carry the confidence to articulate their views.
Q: Why did you ultimately leave that position? What did the experience make you reflect on?
A: I have always believed that the ethos of fair trade can help farmers establish a virtuous cycle. As the old saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Rather than simply providing material aid, it is far better to equip them with the means to solve their own problems. For instance, I would advise farmers not to focus solely on immediate profit-sharing once they start earning, but to reinvest in upgrading their production conditions and funding long-term community projects—such as local infrastructure, schools, and healthcare—to foster sustainable growth.
However, once I was working in the field, I gradually began to see the many contradictions within the fair trade system.
First, the certification criteria are set by Western bodies and do not necessarily align with the specific needs of every region. Second, the model is fundamentally market-driven, operating on a ‘the big fish eat the little fish’ logic. It fails to deliver genuine, substantive fairness, offering only a veneer of formal fairness.
The original vision for fair trade was designed to stimulate the flow of resources, ensuring farmers could access markets backed by guaranteed fair prices. It also aimed to organise them for large-scale trade fairs, facilitate cross-border knowledge-sharing and mutual support among producers, and provide training in agricultural techniques.
However, my own sense is that it operates rather like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While colleagues and senior management alike may have begun with sincere intentions rooted in fairness and justice, the might of the capital markets is simply too formidable. We find ourselves swept along in its current, unable to steer our own course. This is inequality born of capital-driven trade. So long as trade exists—whether deemed “fair” or “unfair”—it inevitably exacerbates this disparity.
The organisation’s ostensibly democratic decision-making processes have, in several instances, been co-opted by capital. Take China, for example: membership lists for certain cooperatives include local officials and traders who wield considerable influence over decisions, leveraging a social fabric deeply structured around personal connections. In South American fair trade bodies, cooperatives composed of local farmers frequently find themselves outmatched in power by agricultural associations representing landowners—entities often backed by large agribusinesses and investors from developed economies.
In the period surrounding my departure, the organisation underwent considerable restructuring, with a steady stream of departures, including my own former mentor and the former chair of the French fair trade organisation. The original aim of fair trade was to empower producers, yet in a bitter irony, these very producer bodies began jostling for internal power and advantage. At international fair trade assemblies, national representatives competed for greater influence over governance, devoid of the empathy and solidarity one might have hoped for. It left me profoundly disillusioned.
A considerable number of the marketing professionals within the organisation drew significantly higher salaries than I did. Having previously worked in marketing roles at major international corporations such as Nestlé and Carrefour, they were thoroughly accustomed to the mechanics of capital. Even after joining an institution championing humanitarian values, they could not entirely unlearn their former ways of operating. This inevitably led to strategic and philosophical friction when we collaborated.
Interacting with farmers in my capacity as staff, I encountered further inequities: Smallholder farmers toil relentlessly, with no weekends off and no recognition of a thirty-five-hour working week, yet they receive the lowest remuneration. Meanwhile, institutional staff don suits and ties, jet across the globe on international flights, stay in comfortable hotels, and tour the circuit delivering lectures to audiences: “The farmers in a given country are in dire poverty and require our aid.”
The vast chasm between my remuneration and theirs—owing to my own education and access to broader social resources—felt fundamentally unjustified. This conviction only intensified during direct contact with the farming communities. They would warmly insist on offering their household’s finest provisions to guests, despite their own modest means. Confronted with such a stark disparity, I felt a growing sense of hypocrisy that ultimately made it impossible for me to continue in the role.
A: In the early stages of fair trade’s development, from the 1960s until around 2000, some farmers did benefit from it.However, with the rise of globalisation, fair trade has begun to mirror the mechanisms of capital; the exploitation is simply less severe and less overt.Moreover, no matter how well-intentioned the model may be, applying a single standard across every region in the world inevitably creates new inequalities.
Today, I personally lean towards localised production and sales; the smaller the region, the better, avoiding cross-border or inter-state trade altogether.When the distance is too great, consumers cannot possibly know what is happening on the other end, no matter how well-intentioned their purchases may be. Fair trade originally aimed to cut out middlemen, but if the supply chain is shorter and consumers are closer to producers, the disconnect will be far less pronounced.
China should look at its own realities and explore what production and sales models are actually possible. Domestic consumers now have greater purchasing power, and we are gradually seeing the emergence of ‘conscientious consumers’ who are mindful of their own consumption habits.
At the same time, more young people are returning to rural areas and farming. It mirrors what I have observed in France in recent years: former doctors, nurses, and legal professionals choosing to switch careers and become farmers, transitioning from consumers to producers.
Sales will undoubtedly be challenging at first, but I am confident that market acceptance for these niche, values-driven products will grow over time. At the very least, many young people are willing to buy directly from local smallholder farmers. Some school cafeterias are now keen to serve organic meals or source all their ingredients from nearby farms.
In reality, consumption and production are not a binary relationship. Rather than emphasising specific frameworks like ‘fair trade’, we should return to building trust between people and fostering ethical engagement grounded in sustainable living.
I still hold out hope that if our current consumption habits become absurd enough, some people will want to return to a more fundamental way of life. Just as the pandemic abruptly severed the connections of modern life, reminding us that the convenience offered by sophisticated digital platforms could one day fail us. Will people then choose to embrace a simpler lifestyle and support alternative consumption models?
Reported and written by: Da Chunfeng
Edited by: Wang Hao