Sustainability of the greedy few

An article was published in the Financial Times on the 9th September 2006, written by Hal Weitzman about workers being paid below the minimum wage on co-operative coffee farms that claim to be "Fair Trade Certified". Effectively he was questioning the intregrity of the Fair Trade Logo and how easy it is to fool the consumer.

I have both visited a Fair Trade co-operative in Brazil (namely Poco Fundo) and my company is also a member of the Fair Trade Foundation and I have to say that the level of auditing carried out by the organisation is in my experience second to none.

There will always be those out there who seek to abuse the system for their own gain to the detriment of the rest of society. We see it everywhere, a few individuals who never seem to have enough and whose only interest is in how much money they can make today at someone elses expense.

I'm sure the gun runners in Darfur are currently making a tidy profit on the back of a poverty stricken majority. In his book "When the rivers run dry: What happens when our water runs out by Fred Pearce" , Mr. Pearce lists no end of examples where the greed of a few is literally killing those who have no choice but to use the polluted waters pumped out by upstream factories.

Every organisation that endeavours to make the life of those less fortunate than our selves better, no matter how small, should be applauded and encouraged. Whilst I welcome criticism it would be nice if Mr. Weitzman also spent some of the time he spent researching his article to also offering some real solutions to overcome this abuse.

Too many people spend their time talking about the problems of this world rather than trying to find ways to solve them in a way that benefits the whole of mankind.