Punkonomics (@DearBalak)

The halo effect of Fairtrade has lasted many years, despite periodic critics popping up wanting to complain either that it distorts markets or that it doesn’t distort them enough.

Development is a complex business and there is always a risk that Fairtrade is seen to overclaim what it can achieve as a way to tackle poverty. There is only so much you can pack into a label, or that you can unpack as a tool to address the deep inequalities of world trade. The research field on Fairtrade has grown over recent years, and played a helpful role in improving practice and standards from what its findings have been.

I remember sitting down with a colleague from Oxfam in 1991 in Brixton around the launch of the Fairtrade Mark and trying to write up standards for fair trade products. We were starting from scratch and it was extraordinarily amateur –…