Buying a banana? Find one that’s fair

A._Badger

It's a shame to see MSE jumping on the touchie-feelie 'Fairtrade' bandwagon.

There are complex and persuasive economic arguments suggesting that 'Fairtrade' does not necessarily serve farmers in poor countries well and there are many controversies about how legitimate some of the certification is.

Even Wikipedia has an entry on the debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_debate

Presenting it as an unqualified 'Good Thing' is just gesture politics and it's troubling to see MSE slipping into that sort of uncritical thinking.

geordie_joe

pennypincher3562 wrote: »

Is there any fair-trade scheme for British Farmers?

West Country Farmers Driven Close to Suicide:
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Westcountry-farmers-driven-close-suicide/story-17626753-detail/story.html#axzz2vEQJfHcb

Well if they were close to suicide 2 years ago, the floods probably finished them off.

3010

Basia02 wrote: »

the problems with fairtrade is that they are always wrapped in plastic - Bananas come with a perfect bio-degradable wrapping - i will not add to the mountain of plastic pollution when it is crazy to do so.

Chris25 wrote: »

I thought all Sainsbury & Co-op bananas were fairtrade, even the loose ones.

M+S, Cooperative and Sainsburys stock loose FT bananas. M+S and Sainsbury's are the same price as the other large supermarkets.