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Artisanal fishermen on the Saloum, Senegal (Photo: Michael Hauri)
Fair Trade: Where is the fish?
Fair trade with producers in poorer countries has been a popular and successful concept for quite some time now. Thanks to the long-standing commitment of organisations and Third World shops, most industrialised countries now offer a wide range of food, beverages and other products from the Global South at fair prices for the benefit of local producers: coffee, tea, rice, honey, bananas, nuts, dried fruit, textiles, etc.
The pioneer associations of fair trade built up a certification scheme and eventually found their breakthrough with the entry of large retailers into the fair trade business. The growing clientele should be able to trust that what is adorned with a fair logo has been produced under fair conditions.
But you still won't find hardly any Fair Trade fish on the market. Isn’t this astonishing, when considering that fish is one of the most traded products from South to North, and this trade in particular is usually more exploitative than fair?