Summary
Certification schemes promote enhanced welfare of certified producers and increased environmental sustainability, and there is growing interest in understanding their effectiveness. Starting in 2011, Fair Trade USA (FTUSA), under the FT4All initiative, began to certify pilot coffee estates and independent smallholders with the aim of improving the livelihoods and labor conditions of the most vulnerable farm workers and producers. Based on FT USA concepts and principles related to independent smallholder producers’ (IS) and farm workers’ (FW) welfare and empowerment, and the Theory of Change (ToC) of FT4All pilots (see Figure 1),1 an assessment of the efectiveness of this ToC was conducted by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) through the research project “Measuring and assessing impacts of Fair Trade for All on farmers, farm workers, and the overall Fair Trade market system,” supported by the Ford Foundation and Keurig Green Mountain.