Tony Durham, senior media officer (emergencies)

It is worrying when involvement with a charity - particularly one as non-political as the Fairtrade Foundation - is seen as a problem for a high-profile broadcast journalist. And the Six O'Clock News presenter George Alagiah is the last person you'd expect this to happen to. He has always represented a very BBC kind of journalism. Some would say that his fault, if he has one, is that as a journalist he is too even-handed and dispassionate, and refuses to become a campaigner even when the rights and wrongs of a situation seem clear.

The Fairtrade Foundation, which supports farmers and farmworkers in the developing world, was a nice fit for Alagiah, who was born in Sri Lanka, brought up in cocoa-producing Ghana, and made his name reporting from Africa. Not surprisingly, the charity is quite upset to be losing its popular patron.

Apparently the decision may have something to do with a forthcoming three-part BBC2 series on food security that Alagiah will be presenting. Perhaps the BBC's fear was that Alagiah's Fairtrade affiliation would lay him open to sniping from some sectors of the food business.

But why now? If BBC executives thought the Fairtrade connection was going to be a problem, they should have picked another presenter - or at least given Alagiah a choice. As it is, the food series will be broadcast and the food industry will still be able to complain of bias, because they know that Alagiah would still be with the Fairtrade Foundation if he had not been told to leave it.

Not that the food industry is likely to raise even a sleepy eyebrow over this. Fairtrade is now so mainstream that its logo is on Cadbury's Dairy Milk.The chief executive of Sainsbury's says he is perplexed by the BBC decision.

The Daily Mail and the Independent are united in their puzzlement.

The BBC said the charity 'takes a position' on food and trade and that it had a duty to protect its impartiality. However, the striking thing about the Fairtrade Foundation is how successfully it works within the existing system, leaving it to the likes of ActionAid to campaign for fundamental changes in world trade rules.

To put this in perspective, imagine George Alagiah had stormed into an IDP camp in Sri Lanka and let loose an all-expletives tirade against the way the island's government had treated his fellow Tamils. That would have given the BBC management something to think about.

But can you imagine it? No, nor me. Not the supreme professional, George Alagiah.

Instead, it was our favourite newscaster's fate to get into trouble over teabags and chocolate.

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