The Dutch-born Catholic missionary Frans van der Hoff, who has died aged 84, was a co-founder of the global Fairtrade movement. Through guaranteeing price levels for their produce that benefit their communities, it has improved the livelihoods of millions of cooperative farmers.
His initiative started in 1988, by helping the coffee farmers of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, with whom he lived and worked for the bulk of his adult life, to gain fair prices by selling directly to consumers via a certification mark. Drawing on contacts in the Christian-influenced social justice movement of his homeland, Van der Hoff arranged for organically produced, cooperatively managed coffee beans from Oaxaca to be exported to the Netherlands and sold through a network of anti-poverty retail stores, known then as “world shops”.
