Towards the end of last year Fairtrade International published the third edition of its annual report on the Fairtrade system 'Monitoring the scope and benefits of Fairtrade Report' (December 2011). So far it has received only limited attention, perhaps being largely overshadowed by developments at Fair Trade USA. But with Fairtrade Fortnight on the horizon (27 Feb - 11 March) it is likely that the public debate about the impact of Fairtrade will be reopened.

Fairtrade is working for producers

The headline data provides strong evidence that Fairtrade is working for producers, who reported a 22% increase in Fairtrade Premium returns in 2010 from the previous report period, and a 24% increase in Fairtrade sales value to producers overall. There is also continued growth in the numbers of farmers and workers participating in Fairtrade. An estimated 1.15 million people benefited in 2010 and it is predicted that this will have exceeded 1.2 million in 2011.

Comment and Analysis

The report contains a wealth of information on the impact Fairtrade is making for farmers and workers in developing countries. Rather than provide a summary of the entire report I have chosen to highlight three areas where this data provides an interesting insight into how Fairtrade is developing.

1. Small farmer organizations and Fairtrade

Some commentators have suggested that corporate pressure is driving Fairtrade supply chains away from small producers and leading to a greater reliance on plantations. While it is true that the numbers of workers employed by hired labour organizations have increased at a greater rate (up approximately 36% between 2008 and 2010), in terms of overall numbers of producers involved in Fairtrade small farmers still represent 85% (approximately 938,000 farmers).

In addition, the data reported also shows that small farmer organizations are continuing to see the greatest benefit from their involvement in Fairtrade, with sales reaching €447million (up 27% between 2008 and 2010) and Fairtrade Premium receipts totalling €38.3 million (up 26% between 2008 and 2010).

2. Fairtrade in Africa

Back in 2007 the House of Commons International Development Committee challenged Fairtrade to increase its 'pro-poor' focus and include more African producers in the Fairtrade system. While the Committee recognised that there had been a significant increase in the number of Fairtrade certified groups in Africa from 42 in 2002 to 137 in 2005, it noted that much of this growth had been within South Africa (the most developed African economy with relatively good infrastructure and transport links).

In 2010, the latest monitoring data reveals that 58% of all farmers and workers within the Fairtrade system lived in Africa. The report shows that there were 253 Fairtrade certified producer organizations in 28 African countries. It is apparent that Africa is now seeing significant benefits from the Fairtrade system with 24% of the global sales revenues and 27% of global Fairtrade Premium revenues currently going to African producers.

But there are still challenges to bring some of the poorest African nations within the Fairtrade system. For instance, almost 60% of Premium revenues to Africa flowed to two countries, Kenya and Ghana, reflecting the importance of West African cocoa within Fairtrade sales globally, and the strength of Kenya in sales of several products from both small farmer and hired labour sources.

3. Women in Fairtrade

Many academics and commentators have recognised the role that women have played in building Fairtrade and case studies such as Kuapa Kokoo have shown strong women leaders as a transformative force for change. This report begins to quantify the role played by women in the Fairtrade system. Overall the data shows that women make up 27 per cent of the farmers and workers involved in Fairtrade. It may be that this figure still underestimates women's direct and indirect contribution to Fairtrade.

Perhaps surprisingly, we find that women are actually more strongly represented within hired labour organizations, where women workers represent 42 per cent of all workers. In India and Sri Lanka, women workers form more than 55 per cent of the Fairtrade hired labour workforce.

The figure for women’s membership of small producer organizations is significantly lower, at 24 percent, and is particularly low for small producer organizations in Asia and Oceania. While co-operatives such as Kuapa Kokoo demonstrate the contribution of women farmers and the potential for greater gender equality, this progressive model is not yet seen in all small producer organizations.

Data Collection

While this report represents the most complete batch of monitoring data so far collected by Fairtrade International, there are still some limitations to the dataset. Not all producer organizations reported against all indicators, some chose not to report the value of their sales. In addition, due to confidentiality agreements data is reported in aggregate and is therefore not used to report on single producer organizations. And since for many products there may be only one or two Fairtrade producer organizations in a country, data is reported at a regional level and not at a country level.