Vinculando.org: Revista electrónica latinoamericana en Desarrollo Sustentable

As L. Waridel (2002: 93) points out, it is not easy to say when the Fair Trade movement started or whether it is situated exclusively in the North. None of the literature reviewed about Fair Trade mentions such initiatives within any country from the South. Through the relatively little material published about the history of the Fair Trade movement, we have an analysis of its emergence that seems to be constructed with an euro-centric model. There is room for more research and a re-consideration of the approach. The following review will examine the philosophies and ideologies behind the movement.

The Alternative Trade is said to have begun towards the end of the 19^th century, with the development of the cooperative movement mainly in the U.K. and Italy; its goal still is to ‘...build an integrated cooperative economy, right the way through from production to retail outlet’, (IFAT, 2002). Another early account of an organized attempt to trade without middlemen is from the former Mennonite International Development Agency (currently the Mennonite Central Committee) which founded in North America their first Self-Help Crafts stores (now known as Ten Thousand Villages) in 1946.