Abstract
Based on the recognition that the current dominant trade never alleviates the poverty of small producers in developing countries, fair trade (FT) which intends to support producers has been developed.
Though some recent studies have gone into a discussion of methods to evaluate FT by the absolute criteria of ‘fairness’, this study attempts to relatively evaluate whether or not FT can improve ‘unfairness’ of the current dominant trade, which will be clarified by this paper.
As far as primary commodities are concerned, theoretical studies on the ‘unfairness’ of the trade date from the theory of the North-South problem in the 1960s. This paper is written with the aim of advancing a framework for analysis of unfair trade of primary commodities produced in developing countries by adoption of various theories such as the North-South problem, the World-System, the Food-System and the pricing mechanism for agricultural products. What is more, a part of results of the case study (Tanzanian coffee) from within the framework and an evaluation example of FT will be shown.
