What are the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations criteria for producers?
FLO maintains a Coffee Producers Registry that is open to associations of small farmers who meet several criteria that can be summed up in the following way. They have to be poor; only small farmers who are not dependent on hired labor, not plantations, are represented. And they have to be democratically organized as small farmer associations that are independent and transparent. Representatives from FLO annually inspect Fair Trade farms in producing countries.