Our customers care about where their products come from, and they put their trust in us to do the right thing on their behalf. Which is why sourcing our products with integrity is key to our work with farmers, growers and suppliers in the UK and around the world. However, with so many different standards and logos on packaging related to sustainable sourcing, it’s important to really understand what’s behind the label. With that in mind, I recently went to meet Fairtrade farmers in Rwanda and Tanzania.
We’re committed to fairly traded products, which is why investing in the sustainability of our suppliers, farmers, growers and workers within our supply chains, both at home and abroad, is important to us. To this end, we believe that standards which include the payment of a “social premium” can help make a material difference to the challenging circumstances that workers, smallholder farmers and their communities – whom we rely on for many of our favourite foods such as bananas, coffee and tea – face on a daily basis.
In addition to the Fairtrade Standards, which ensure fairer terms of trade between farmers and buyers, the Fairtrade Premium is an additional sum of money that is paid directly to farmers and workers, on top of the fair payment they receive for their crops and labour, so they can invest in the social, environmental or economic development projects of their choice to improve their businesses and communities.
In Rwanda and Tanzania I was able to visit projects funded through the Fairtrade Premium. The farmers and workers collectively decide how to spend the social premium to reach their goals, such as improving farming, businesses, health and education in their community. The projects I saw were exemplary, and will further shape Sainsbury’s’ approach going forward.
It was humbling and inspiring to see what these farmers can achieve in unimaginable conditions, with very basic challenges such as access to clean water, education, medical care, basic household amenities, a lack of transport infrastructure – and now, climate change.
To address these issues, communities have established a broad range of projects, from investing in the water infrastructure, providing clean water for the community and making a real impact to the prevalence of dysentery and illness in Tanzanian communities, to building coffee processing and packing facilities in Rwanda.
The scale and quality of the investments in education – including school buildings, dormitories, equipment and schooling costs – across the producer groups and communities I visited, along with the drive to diversify farmer income in response to climate change, ranging from tree planting in Tanzania to cattle ownership in Rwanda – were particularly memorable.
Witnessing these projects and speaking to the people, many of whom are women, who are improving their lives using their own solutions, gives real meaning and responsibility to Sainsbury’s’ commitment to fairly traded products.
While visiting these projects, the team from Fairtrade Africa described the impact Fairtrade has had for women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country ravaged by civil war. One of the impacts of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 was that its coffee industry all but died out, with many coffee growers forced to abandon their farms to flee the violence. Those who remained had little choice but to smuggle their harvest across the giant Lake Kivu into neighbouring DRC, with thousands drowning in the attempt. This tragedy, in combination with the conflict, left countless “coffee widows” struggling to support their families.
Our Taste the Difference Fairtrade coffee launched in 2013 supports the Solidarité Paysanne pour la Promotion des Actions Café et Développement Intégral (SOPACDI) coffee cooperative. SOPACDI, which is based in the DRC, set out to deliver better livelihoods for farmers and develop very high quality coffee. The income and social premium helps SOPACDI deliver projects to benefit the whole community and support ongoing efforts to improve quality. An extra two cents/lb on the sale of all coffee by SOPACDI supports female empowerment programmes, and has so far contributed around $15,000 to support a women’s committee and small business ventures run by women.
We’ve had a long history of supporting smallholder farmers, farm workers and their communities through Fairtrade. Since converting Sainsbury’s Red Label tea in 2008, more than £7m of social premium has been invested in projects in Kenya, Malawi, India, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.
In one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi, more than 8,000 farmers involved in the Sukambizi cooperative and their community have been able to invest over £2m building schools and bridges, funding the delivery of healthcare and teaching and providing agricultural training and replacing old degraded tea bushes.
As we approach the tenth anniversary of providing solely Fairtrade bananas to our customers, we’re immensely proud of the difference they have helped to make. Farmers, farm workers and their communities across Colombia, the Dominican Republic, St Lucia, Peru, Panama and Ghana can benefit from investing in addressing basic housing, healthcare and education provision as a result of the initiative.
Despite the scale of need and the challenges faced by workers, smallholder farmers and their communities, none of this support would happen without the social premium from our Fairtrade products, so it is well worth remembering not all sourcing standards are equal.
At Sainsbury’s, we continue to be committed to fairly traded products – with a significant amount of work to be done, we believe it’s a price well worth paying.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Fairtrade Foundation, sponsor of the spotlight on commodities series
