The death of fair trade (Journal, 23 July) can partly be laid at the door of the EU. Its treatment of former colonies, restricting tariff-free trade to “primary produce” so that the profitable part of the businesses, manufacture, is protected, means that they may be independent in terms of politics, but are economically still the same colonies.

Take Ghana, which Samanth Subramanian mentions. Go and buy your bar of “Fairtrade” Divine chocolate. On the back it waxes lyrical about Kuapa Kokoo, the cocoa farmers’ organisation that tries to guarantee fair and stable prices for cocoa beans, with a bit extra for the social premium. Read to the end of the small print where it says: “Made in Germany”. Ghana has a perfectly good chocolate factory, at the port town of Tema, but workers only make chocolate for the local market, because that is all they are allowed to do. Ghana would be a lot richer if it could sell the manufactured product over here, but that would be in direct competition with the German manufacturer, which the EU is formed to protect. That is why I voted leave in the referendum – though I probably would not do so again, as Brexit is unlikely to improve the situation.

Tim Gossling

Cambridge

• Fairtrade has become a valued criterion in how responsible shoppers feed their families, while supporting the principle of decent incomes for farmers throughout the world, particularly the developing world. Unsurprisingly we now learn that all is not always as it seems. There is another criterion beloved of the health-conscious shopper, who is frequently the same person to insist on fair trade – that of organic produce. With producers “marking their own homework” as you put it, I often wonder how trustworthy some organic labelling is. I can buy organic honey which is described as coming from Derbyshire, but upon reading the small print I find that it is a blend of honeys from “EU and non-EU sources”. Can I really trust the producers in every country in the world to be equally fastidious in their marketing?

Bob Caldwell

Daventry, Northamptonshire

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