Some thought about "Fair Trade"

I’ve been reading some interesting posts on the message board of the very interesting site of Black Gold.
Black Gold is a movie highlighting the un-fair trade of coffee between African countries and rich Western countries.
On the message board, some people are asking that if the African coffee farmers don’t get that much money from farming coffee, why would they not farm something else then? Food for example. After all, this could be for their own consumption as well as being exported when there is an overproduction…

Unfortunately it is not that simple. Coffee and Cocoa are simply exported from Africa because they are difficult to grow in North America and Europe. Therefore there is a need for them, which creates the opportunity for Africa to export.
This must happen under the rich countries’ rules though… (or rather, the WTO’s rules, but since the WTO is mostly directed by the rich countries, it’s pretty much their game…)

For example, Ghana can export raw cocoa duty free to Europe, but a 25% tariff is imposed if they process that cocoa before exporting it to Europe. It is this processing (tinning, roasting, labeling) which helps a country earn more money and develop its manufacturing base - and which allows its economy to grow. While fair trade could be Africa's ticket out of the vicious cycles of poverty, unfair trade rules make it difficult for Africa to develop their trade and industry… (source: DATA)

In the case of crops, these could indeed be grown in Africa, only if their farmers had the money in the first place to buy seeds for the crops, and the additional money to farm their lands professionally (as most crops are more difficult to farm than coffee or cocoa, which even grow wild…)
Besides that, in a lot of cases land in Africa is not owned by the farmer, but rather by the government, or the tribe that the farmer belongs to. They see that they can make some money from exporting the current produce, so they naturally think they better keep it this way, rather than changing their produce to a product that can’t be exported at all…

And why can’t a product like simple crop be exported? Because in the view of many people the WTO mainly protects the trade of the rich countries, who have a strong trade in farm-produce already… any import from other countries would damage their own turnover, and therefore this is strongly discouraged.

Many people feel this has to stop in order to let 3rd world nations develop to their full potential. African nations must be able to setup their trade according to their own standards and implement the industry that goes along with that.
Only where to start…?
As long as the WTO is governed directly by the rich countries, things won’t become better…

Research done from DATA and Black Gold
Please read more on these sites about the subject of “fair” trade…