Fairtrade failing to deliver benefits ?

've been hearing rumours lately of serious questions about the benefits of FT: that it might not be benefitting people as much as the normal market. Well, it could well be that what I've been hearing was the harbinger of this report -picked up by the Observer here: Fairtrade accused of failing to deliver benefits to African farmworkers.

The summary in one sentence:

Sales of Fairtrade-certified products from Uganda and Ethiopia are not benefiting poor farmworkers as profits fail to trickle down to much of the workforce, says a groundbreaking study.

It does make concerning reading for those of us who have long supported the idea of Fair Trade. However, don't just read the first two thirds or so of the article which lay out the basic findings. You need to read the last part of the article to learn that there may be factors that put it in a different, less alarming, light. As the reports authors themselves suggest, for example:

"One possibility is that Fairtrade producer organisations are always
established in significantly poorer, more marginalised areas where an
accumulation of disadvantages means smallholder farmers are unable to
pay even the paltry wages offered by smallholders in other areas without
Fairtrade producer organisations,

And then a comment from the FT foundation:

When comparisons are based more on like-for-like situations, such as the
study's own analysis of Ugandan coffee in small scale coffee production
set-ups, it finds key areas where workers in areas with
Fairtrade-certified farmer organisations in fact had better conditions
compared with those in non-certified, such as free meals, overtime
payments and loans and wage advances for workers. 

All of which seems to indicate a more complex situation and more research and certainly doesn't mean we should give up FT buying just yet.