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	Fairtrade International Global · Tier 3 Specialty	Demeter International Global · Tier 2 Trusted
What it means	Certifies fair prices and conditions for producers in developing countries — not organic, not environmental. Common on coffee, cocoa, sugar, bananas, tea.	The certification mark for biodynamic agriculture. Stricter than any government organic standard: it covers the entire farm as a closed ecosystem, follows a planting calendar tied to lunar/solar cycles, and bans many practices the baseline organic rules permit.
Scope	Food	Several categories
Established	1997	1928
Inspection	Annual on-site by FLOCERT (independent of Fairtrade International)	Annual on-site by Demeter-accredited inspectors
Residue testing	Not for organic — Fairtrade alone doesn't test residues	Risk-based on top of organic
Guarantees	Minimum price floors for producer cooperatives. Fairtrade Premium paid into community-development funds. Bans on the worst forms of child and forced labour. Producer organisations must be small-farmer cooperatives or hired-labour plantations meeting standards.	All organic standards PLUS biodynamic preparations and whole-farm planning. Whole-farm certification (not single fields/products). Annual on-site inspection by Demeter-accredited inspectors. Animal welfare standards stricter than baseline organic.
Does NOT	Doesn't mean organic — many Fairtrade products are conventionally grown. A separate Fairtrade-Organic dual certification exists.	Biodynamic philosophy includes esoteric elements (lunar planting, herbal preparations) that many scientists view as non-evidence-based — the agronomic outcomes are still good, the underlying claims about cosmic forces are not testable.

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