Historically, the term “fair trade” has meant many things. The Fair Trade League was
1 in Britain in 1881 to restrict
2 from foreign countries. In the United States, businesses and labor unions
3 “fair trade” laws to construct what economist Joseph Stiglitz calls “barriers to imports.” These so called “anti-dumping(反倾销)” laws allow a company that
4 a foreign one of selling a product below cost to request that the government charge special taxes to protect it from “unfair”
5 .
Such dark protectionist thoughts are far from the
6 of the organizers of the United Kingdom’s annual “Fairtrade Fortnight”. Their
7 aim is to raise the price paid to developing-country farmers for their
8 by cutting out the inflated profits of the middlemen on whom they
9 for getting their goods to distant markets. Fair-trade products
10 cocoa, coffee, tea, and bananas do not compete with domestic European production, and
11 do not have a protectionist motive(动机).
This is how it works: In
12 for being paid a guaranteed price and meeting “agreed labor and environmental standards” (minimum wages, no farm chemicals ), poor-country farming cooperatives(合作社) receive a FAIRTRADE mark for their products, given
13 by the FAIRTRADE Labeling Organization. This mark
14 supermarkets and other businesses to sell the products at a higher than
15 price . Third-world farmers get their income increased ,
16 first-world consumers get to feel virtuous: a marriage made in heaven.
The fair-trade movement,
17 in the 1980’s, has been growing rapidly. In a significant breakthrough in 1997, the British House of Commons
18 to serve only fair-trade coffee. By the end of 2007, more than 600 producers’ organizations,
19 1.4 million farmers in 58 countries, were selling fair-trade products. Today, a quarter of all bananas in UK supermarkets are sold under a FAIRTRADE mark. But FAIRTRADE-labeled products still represent a very
20 share – typically less than 1% – of global sales of cocoa, tea, coffee, etc.
小题1: | A.discovered | B.founded | C.encouraged | D.promoted |
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小题2: | A.imports | B.exports | C.output | D.trade |
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小题3: | A.disobey | B.break | C.use | D.study |
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小题4: | A.suspects | B.needs | C.wants | D.advertises |
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小题5: | A.agreement | B.contract | C.game | D.competition |
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小题6: | A.worries | B.minds | C.comments | D.projects |
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小题7: | A.educational | B.political | C.worthy | D.immediate |
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小题8: | A.favour | B.benefit | C.interest | D.produce |
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小题9: | A.depend | B.spend | C.look | D.apply |
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小题11: | A.instead | B.otherwise | C.therefore | D.anyhow |
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小题12: | A.fear | B.store | C.preparation | D.exchange |
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小题13: | A.secretly | B.publicly | C.officially | D.successfully |
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小题14: | A.urges | B.enables | C.orders | D.forces |
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小题15: | A.normal | B.potential | C.lowest | D.best |
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小题17: | A.launched | B.arranged | C.invented | D.developed |
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小题18: | A.wanted | B.refused | C.had | D.decided |
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小题19: | A.telling | B.representing | C.Choosing | D.receiving |
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小题20: | A.small | B.little | C.good | D.large |
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