Pérez Ruiz and García de los Salmones (2018).Ī meta-review of more than 2,600 papers in the peer-review literature on Fair Trade found that ‘certification is associated on average with positive outcomes for 34% of response variables, no significant difference for 58% of variables, and negative outcomes for 8% of variables’ (DeFries, Fanzo, Mondal, Remans & Wood, 2017). The annual reports of the Fairtrade Foundation (UK) and snapshots like the one provided on their website provide an overview: Smallholders and producers have to become owners of the positive outcomes they are seeking to achieve. To achieve this, data production must be bottom-up, rather than top-down. A new paradigm in systematic and real-time outcome reporting is possible. Fairtrade and other certifiers for responsible sourcing only do marginally better than agribusiness in their current reporting in terms of outcome and impact reporting. I provide evidence that at least some of the mainstream agribusiness sector is moving towards outcome reporting in some dimensions of their operations. This shift will align financial and non-financial reporting and help to ensure that Fair Trade is delivering on its core objectives, which include better prices for smallholder producers, improved working conditions and local sustainability. In this article, I propose that a paradigm shift towards systematic and regular outcome and impact reporting by Fair Trade organisations is both possible and urgently needed. While much of the evidence is positive, there are also studies that find negligible, neutral or even negative effects. There is an extensive literature on the impact of Fair Trade.
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