What is Fair Trade Certified?

Have you noticed the "Fair Tade Certified" label on certain products at the grocery store like cofee or rice? Do you wonder what it's all about? Here's the basics:

Fair Trade Certified products must meet certain social and environmental standards. Those standards are:

Farmers are paid a fair price for their products and in turn those farmers pay their workers a fair wage for their labor

Workers must have decent working and living conditions. Forced child labor is prohibited.

Farmers must farm in a sustainable fashion - that includes farming organically.

The farmers must make investments in their local communities.

This process of fair trade raises the standard of living for the laborers and their communities all over the world. By buying Fair Trade Certified products, you are helping to contribute to the environmental and financial stability of people in developing nations.

This is, of course, a very simplified explanation of Fair Trade Certified. For more details, you can visit www.fairtradecertified.org, the website for TransFair USA - the only independent, non-profit certification agency for Fair Trade products in the US.