Oxfam defends scrapping Fair Trade

Oxfam, the pioneer of Fair Trade, is scrapping its own ethical product line.

Yesterday the charity denied claims that the move was a commercial reaction to a continuingly indifferent public, insisting it was diverting its resources into promoting and lobbying for fair trade causes.

"Our products were only sold in our shops. Fair Trade was never going to make quantum leaps simply through sales in Oxfam shops," said Chris Coe, the trading director.

Back in the late Fifties, the idea first came to an Oxfam director visiting Hong Kong. He brought back pincushions made by Chinese refugees to be sold in Britain.

In 1964, the charity created the Alternative Trading Organisation. A few years later the first Fair Trade shop opened, introducing the British public to the concept of paying workers in some of the world's poorest communities a fair price. The market has continued to grow steadily if not rapidly. In the past 10 years, it has more than doubled to £53m last year.

But the market remains tiny with only 3.5 per cent of the population committed to buying Fair Trade products. Many groups of registered farmers can only sell a fraction of their crop to the Fair Trade market because the demand is not high enough. Some retail analysts claim shoppers are more swayed by price than principle. But Mr Coe insisted this was not a factor when Oxfam decided to redirect its resources away from its own products and into lobbying for fair trade.