The coffee has to come from a certified Fairtrade cooperative, and there is a minimum price when the world market is oversupplied, and 10c per lb extra at other times.

The marketing system for Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade coffee is identical in the consuming countries, using mostly the same importing, packing, distributing and retailing firms.

[6] To become certified Fairtrade producers, the primary cooperative and its member farmers must operate to certain political standards, imposed from Europe.

[7] In the Fair trade debate there are many complaints of failure to enforce these standards, with producers, cooperatives, importers and packers profiting by evading them.

Fairtrade Canada works alongside community groups, companies, and individual citizens to promote fair trade certified products.

The following fair trade products are currently certified by Fairtrade Canada and available throughout the country: coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, fresh fruit, grains (rice and quinoa), spices and herbs, cotton, wine, flowers, nuts and oils (shea butter and olive oil), and sports balls.

Fairtrade Canada organizes and coordinates several events every year to promote fair trade in Canada, most notably the Fair Trade Fortnight (or the Quinzaine du Commerce Équitable in French) which typically run in May, and the Canadian Fairtrade Towns campaign.

[citation needed] Consumers have been shown to be content paying higher prices for Fairtrade products, in the belief that this helps the very poor.

[9] The main ethical criticism of Fairtrade is that this premium over non-Fairtrade products does not reach the producers and is instead collected by businesses, employees of co-operatives or used for unnecessary expenses.

Kilian, Jones, Pratt and Villalobos[12] talk of US Fairtrade coffee getting $5 per lb extra at retail, of which the exporter would have received only 2%.

While this appears to be agreed by proponents and critics of Fairtrade,[15] there is a dearth of economic studies setting out the actual revenues and what the money was spent on.

[20] Griffiths (2011)[4] argues that few of these attempts meet the normal standards for an impact study, such as comparing the before and after situation, and having meaningful control groups.

Serious methodological problems arise in sampling, in comparing prices, and from the fact that the social projects of Fairtrade do not usually aim to produce economic benefits.

Fairtrade claims that its farmers are paid higher prices and are given special advice on increasing yields and quality.

It also makes it impossible to argue that any positive or negative changes in the living standards of farmers are due to Fairtrade rather than to one of the other donors.

He also points to the failure to disclose when ‘the primary commercial intent’ is to make money for retailers and distributors in rich countries.

[34] Boersma (2002, 2009)[35] the founder of Fairtrade, and like minded people[36] are aiming at a new, non-capitalist way of running the market and the economy.

Notably by Christian Jacquiau[45] and by Paola Ghillani, who spent four years as president of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations[45] There are many complaints of poor enforcement problems: labourers on Fairtrade farms in Peru are paid less than the minimum wage;[46] some non-Fairtrade coffee is sold as Fairtrade;[47] "the standards are not very strict in the case of seasonally hired labour in coffee production",[48] "some fair trade standards are not strictly enforced",[49] and supermarkets avoid their responsibility.

French author and RFI correspondent Jean-Pierre Boris championed this view in his 2005 book Commerce inéquitable.

French author Christian Jacquiau, in his book Les coulisses du commerce équitable, calls for stricter fair trade standards and criticizes the fair trade movement for working within the current system (i.e., partnerships with mass retailers, multinational corporations, etc.)

[53] It has been argued that the approach of the FairTrade system is too rooted in a Northern consumerist view of justice which Southern producers do not participate in setting.