ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how the Fair Trade initiatives have been evaluated and to perform a critical review of literature related to Fair Trade coffee in order to inform various practices and methodological challenges. It focuses on coffee production given its role as a pioneer product in the movement and its relevance in the international commodity market. The chapter reviews briefly the history and scope of the Fair Trade movement and comment on the relevance of Fair Trade coffee production. It discusses some methodological challenges faced when evaluating the impact of Fair Trade projects. Efforts to improve the well-being in poor countries using markets can be traced to the period after World War II when charities in Western Europe began importing handcrafts from producers in Eastern Europe under favorable terms. Fair Trade initiatives can be seen as development programs and evaluated following standard and methodologies of evaluation.
