Why is fair trade important?

Fair trade is important because in many poorer countries, prices are so low that workers are unable to earn enough to live off of. Also, some goods are produced in ways that are exploitative to workers, or ways that are unsustainable environmentally, damaging to the environment in the communities in which the goods are produced.

Fair trade does not instantly solve all these problems, but it aims to potentially address some of them in ways that conventional trade does not.