The Fur Trade Small but important.

The fur trade comprises hunting communities and many small farms and family businesses, craftsmen and women, manufacturers, dressing companies, co-operatively owned or publicly floated auction houses, designers and retailers. It is a small but global industry. Worldwide retail turnover in 2008 was just over US $13 billion.

The fur trade provides jobs and cash income in remote, hard to farm areas such as the deserts of Namibia, the ice floes and fjords of the Arctic Circle, the great wilderness of North America as well as being ideal for the small, family run farming economies of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. In several northern European countries, US and Canadian sates and provinces fur farming is an important part of the agricultural sector. The fast-developing economies of China and Russia are growing fur markets as well as producers of fur. The IFTF works with its members in all countries to educate and support their efforts to ensure high animal welfare standards, good conservation practice and where appropriate, encourage their government to adopt and implement international standards.