BUSINESS COMPANIES AND FAIR TRADE: REALITIES AND PERSPECTIVES

Fair trade has been developing for more than 30 years in a context in which consumers, ever more informed and vigilant, become extremely sensitive to the catastrophic effects of globalization. Repeated food crises (dioxin-infested chickens, mad cow disease) bring back into discussion the option of a type of agriculture based exclusively on a maximum profitability. Consumers want healthier food choices that respect nature. Many of them, shocked by the global economic unbalance, keep an eye on the origin of the products that are presented to them and the conditions under which they are made. Fair trade provides the means to act through responsible shopping, in order to act against poverty and help regulate international trade. In this new perception of trade, help and assistance relations between the North and the South are replaced by fair trade "relations" who avoid unfair trade between producers and consumers. In this context, business companies must have the initiative to suggest ways to find alternatives that match their expectations and, at the same time, encourage a sustainable development. It is up to them to constantly improve the quality and the dynamic of the offer so that it better matches the expectations of producers, on one hand, and the consumers, on the other, so that fair trade can be a success, both at a commercial level and as far as its impact on the human development of the populations from underdeveloped countries.