Fair trade labeling is intended to assure you that the coffee or other product you are buying has been certified as a quality product made in an environment that respects its workers. Usually bean farmers are poor, so if you believe you are helping them earn a “fair” or better-than-market wage, then you feel good about yourself.

But this book, The Fair Trade Scandal, argues that helping the poor isn’t the result, particularly in Africa. “The growth in sales for fair trade products has been dramatic in recent years,” it says, “but most of the benefit has accrued to the already wealthy merchandisers at the top of the value chain rather than to the poor producers at the bottom.” The author, Ndongo Sylla, is a researcher for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

The Acton Institute blog touches on the problems with fair trade. “In some cases,” Sarah Stanley writes, “fair trade growers have been known to sell lower quality crops in the fair trade market and then sell higher quality coffee beans in the non-fair trade market for a competitive price. A guaranteed price means that growers do not have to guarantee quality.”

One solution for coffee drinkers is to support active business owners, like Ryan Knapp of Madcap Coffee.

“We have been intentional on the fact that we are not going to have a label to say what our coffee is as much as we are going to be a brand that is committed to great business practices.” He goes on, “Fair trade, a certification doesn’t really tell the whole story…Fair Trade isn’t the best option always for producers.” What is the best option for producers? According to Knapp, “the big piece of it is the transparency aspect and knowing exactly where our dollar is going and being able to trace that down to people that are actually growing the coffee, farming the coffee.”