Alternative Trade Organization and Subjective Quality of Life

Abstract

An alternative trade organization (ATO) is one where philosophies of social justice and/or environmental well-being preside over mission-based marketing transactions. The primary mission of such organizations is to develop equal partnerships among members of a marketing channel—the producers, retailers, and consumers. The present research uses data from one such ATO, TransFair USA, to examine the impact of Fair Trade marketing practices on coffee producers in Latin America. In this context, this study contributes to previous research by empirically testing the idea that participants in the Latin American fair trade coffee channel benefit from their participation as claimed by proponents of ATOs. Results show that producers belonging to a FairTrade organization reported a greater overall sense of well-being and a more positive outlook for their future as a result of their participation in the TransFair, USA coffee marketing channel as compared to nonmembers. Higher levels of participation in the cooperatives among participants with longer tenure in the organizations also enjoyed higher subjective quality-of-life perceptions. Results suggest that researchers should be cautious not to over generalize the effects of fair trade marketing on producers quality of life across contexts, marketing channels or countries.

Towards a Balanced Sustainability Vision for the Coffee Industry

“…The farmers' difficulties were widely reported in the media and academic literature, generating increased scrutiny to high profile brands and prompting Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and consumer advocates to press for the adoption of farmer support programs [11,[16][17][18], among many others). Many of these brands shared these objectives and began their path to sustainability of their supply chain through different certification schemes that provided them with additional differentiation attributes and reduced their reputational risks [1,8,14,[19][20][21][22].…”

“…During the low price years, the valued-added markets based on VSS coffees seemed to be a promising tool for smallholders in developing regions, particularly for Organic and Fairtrade products [8,11,14,19,21,41,[57][58][59][60][61]. These and other schemes were designed to offer an alternative to the conventional commodity market regime by challenging market competitiveness based solely on price [61] and by better valorizing local resources and internalizing social and environmental costs of production [61][62][63].…”

Grounded Theory as a Macromarketing Methodology

“…Jaffee 2007;Witkowski 2005). In relation to the Journal of Macromarketing, however, Fairtrade remains somewhat underrepresented, with only three previous articles explicitly focused on it (Beji-Becheur, Pedregal, and Ozcaglar-Toulouse 2008;Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011;Golding 2009). Fairtrade research concerning macro issues tends to focus on producer communities, either in terms of marketing (Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011) or of economics and governance (Raynolds and Taylor 2004;Smith 2009).…”

“…Fairtrade research concerning macro issues tends to focus on producer communities, either in terms of marketing (Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011) or of economics and governance (Raynolds and Taylor 2004;Smith 2009). Consumption related research tends to focus on individual consumers and their response to Fairtrade offerings, and is dominated by micro-marketing perspectives, such as consumer willingness to pay any price premium involved (Wright and Heaton 2006), albeit in the context of ultimately addressing a set of macromarketing issues, such as social and economic justice for producers as market participants (Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011 This accreditation ensures that the promotion of Fairtrade consumption through the mechanism of a Fairtrade Town represents a complex and multi-stakeholder marketing phenomenon. Despite their rapid growth, FTTs' role in promoting and developing Fairtrade consumption remains under-researched.…”

Can origin labels re-shape relationships along international supply chains? – The case of Café de Colombia

“…A promising tool for small-holders in developing regions is the access to value added agro-food markets, particularly organic and fair trade products and more recently Geographical Indications (GIs) (Murdoch et al 2000;Bacon 2005;Fan and Chan-Kang 2005;Muradian and Pelupessy 2005;Raynolds et al 2007;Teuber 2010;Geiger-Oneto and Arnould 2011). Value added labels offer an alternative to the conventional free trade regime by challenging market competitiveness based solely on price (Raynolds 2000) and by better valorising local resources hint at the importance of collective action of producers, knowledge on GI-processes and supportive national GI-legislation.…”