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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