[2008] FORT, Ricardo; RUBEN, Ruerd. «The impact of fair trade certification on coffee producers in Peru.» En: RUBEN, Ruerd (ed). The impact of fair trade. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers. p. 75-98.

This study presents important empirical evidence to understand the effects of FT certification on coffee farmers in the center region of Peru.

A detailed selection of treatment and control coffee cooperatives and the use of a propensity score matching technique allowed us to constructed a good counterfactual for the situation of FT farmers prior to their involvement in this supply chain. Given the importance of organic farming in the region and in the chosen cooperatives, we decided to analyze the impact of FT separately for organic and conventional farmers within these cooperatives.

Moreover, the three FT cooperatives selected have different time spans with the FT certification what also made possible to explore the importance of this fact on the perceived benefits.

For both groups of farmers (organic and conventional) our results did not show any significant effect of FT involvement in terms of higher household income. The still reduced market for FT sales in the region, and the high local prices for conventional and organic coffee paid the year of the survey as a consequence of a production shortage, can at least in part explain this fact.

Even though there is no significant difference in household expenditures for FT producers in either the organic or conventional groups, both of them present higher levels of animal stocks and an increment in their value of agricultural assets in the last years. In terms of their general wellbeing, farmers in older FT cooperatives appear to be better-off than the ones in cooperatives with a recent FT involvement.