Category: Case studies

Protests over Palm Oil Sourcing in Guatemala

Chapter 2 / Case studies / Palm Oil

In December 2021, a number of NGOs signed a letter protesting against the resumption of palm oil sourcing by multinationals such as Nestlé, Cargill, PepsiCo, Proctor and Gamble  and others, from REPSA (Reforestadora de Palma S.A.) in Sayaxcha, Guatemala. This followed an inadequate response by the REPSA/HAME Group to an Open Letter sent in June 2021. The controversy, however, started in 2015 and was explained by Sheila Amoo-Gottfried for the newsletter of the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA 84, March 2022). We are grateful to Sheila for her permission to reproduce the article in The Violence of Development website.

 The letter and campaign are promoted by Forest Peoples.org, Friends of the Earth USA, Rainforest Action Network and ActionAid USA. Many other NGOs such as ENCA signed on to the letter.

 By Sheila Amoo-Gottfried, March 2022

 

In 2015, spills from REPSA’s crude palm oil plant in Sayaxcha, Petén, led to an ecological disaster along the Pasión River, harming the livelihoods and access to water and food of Indigenous communities and causing lasting damage to the ecosystem. Fish, reptiles and mammals were massively affected along more than 100km section of the river.

Following legal action by civil society against REPSA in 2015, a court order led to the temporary closure of the plant. In the aftermath of this injunction, violence, intimidation and threats were unleashed, with the illegal detention of three human rights defenders from CONDEG (National Council of Displaced People – Guatemala) and the assassination of Rigoberto Lima, a REPSA critic. Although company personnel and security guards associated with REPSA were thought to be implicated, REPSA has denied any involvement and refuses to acknowledge and address the underlying abuses, labour exploitation, escalating violence or environmental damage.

Nothing has yet been resolved and REPSA continues to use delaying tactics and intimidation to avoid further legal action or the formation of an independent third-party verification process to assess REPSA’s progress in meeting a set of minimum requirements. These requirements include acknowledging and taking responsibility for the devastating consequences of the contamination of the Pasión River basin on the environment, public health and social fabric of the surrounding communities and establishing effective grievance mechanisms for unresolved past problems and for the future.  Meanwhile, many multinationals (Cargill, Nestlé, Unilever, Ferrero, etc) have resumed resourcing palm oil from REPSA, failing to reconsider their decisions based on the evidence and recommendations provided in the Open Letter.

The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights said in a 2020 letter to the Guatemalan government that the contracting and labour practices of REPSA could be “indicators of human trafficking and forced labour and other severe forms of labour exploitation.”  REPSA and its buyers have not responded to these allegations of human rights violations affecting their largely Indigenous workers. This is a systematic problem across the palm oil cultivating regions of Guatemala. The criminalisation of four Indigenous human rights defenders, given a suspended four-year sentence on 22nd November 2021, along with the violent displacement of the Maya Q’eqchi community ‘Palestina’ in Chinebal, El Estor on November 16th [2021] are further indications that human rights violations in this sector are ongoing and endemic.

In December 2021, numerous national civil society organisations (CSOs) and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) maintained their call on these multinationals to continue the suspension of sourcing palm oil from REPSA until judicial process has reached a satisfactory conclusion regarding the case of ecocide. REPSA also has to accept the undertaking of a thorough, objective and transparent independent investigation into the complaints represented in ongoing reports of human rights violations and environmental damage caused by its operations and supply chain.

Furthermore, taking into account the issues raised in the UN Human Rights Rapporteur’s letter, REPSA is required to enter into serious and responsible dialogue with impacted communities and Guatemalan CSOs for verifiable and practical solutions, and to repair and redress the environmental and economic damage done in the affected communities.

https://enca.org.uk/blog/2022/03/11/newsletter-84/

 

Concerns raised about pesticides in Costa Rica

Chapter 2 / Case studies / Pesticide (ab)use

By Fabiola Pomareda García | pomaredafabiola@gmail.com

22 September 2022, Semanario Universidad

We are grateful to Fabiola for permission to translate and summarise her article in Semanario Universidad, the Costa Rican weekly paper. Translated and summarised for the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA) and for The Violence of Development website by Jill Powis with minor additions by Stephanie Williamson of the Pesticide Action Network. 

A virtual seminar ‘From the global pesticide complex to the agripoisons crisis in Costa Rica’, discussed worrying aspects of Costa Rica’s pesticide licensing system and use.  It was jointly organised by a number of Costa Rican organisations:  Biodiversity Coordination Network (RCB), CoecoCeiba – Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, Bloque Verde (Green Block) and Frenasapp (National Front of Sectors Affected by Pineapple Production).

Soledad Castro, doctoral researcher at Barcelona’s Autonomous University, presented the results of research into Costa Rica’s pesticide licensing system carried out from 2018-21 with Marion Werner, professor and researcher at the University at Buffalo, New York State.

She explained that a total of 1,800 pesticides are still licensed for use in Costa Rica without up-to-date studies on their potential risk to health and the environment.  The problem goes back to 2004, when Costa Rica’s Comptroller General formally declared that the pesticide licensing system needed to be changed.  Health and environmental risk assessments would be mandatory, with evaluations carried out in Costa Rica itself before pesticides would be licensed. In 2007 new legislation gave a 10 year deadline for these old licences to comply with the new requirements, which, however, led to a huge backlog of license updating

In 2016, executive decrees were issued relaxing these requirements, a move described by critics as a form of deregulation. Following legal challenges, these decrees were suspended by the Constitutional Court and then countered by legislative attempts to extend further the ‘useful life’ of these outdated pesticides. There is now a Registration of Agrochemicals bill before the Legislative Assembly under which an affidavit would be sufficient for a substance to be approved for use and studies carried out in other countries would be acceptable. The State Phytosanitary Service confirmed to the researchers that 1,800 pesticides licensed before 2007 are still being used, without any updated risk assessments carried out. Soledad Castro expressed concern at their social and ecological impact.

Fernando Ramírez, researcher and professor at the Regional Institute for Research on Toxic Substances (IRET) of Costa Rica’s National University explained that 80% of the pesticides applied in Costa Rica qualify as highly hazardous.  Furthermore, Costa Rica uses 10 times more pesticides per hectare than the United States – on average 25kg/ha of active ingredient as compared to 2.5 kg/ha in the States.

Since 2007, Costa Rica has become an exporter of pesticides, mainly due to its high importation of technical grade active ingredients for making formulations – mixing them with adjuvants to make their application more effective.  The formulated products are then exported to other countries. Costa Rica mainly imports active ingredients from India (63%), China (30%), the United States (3%) and Poland (2.5%).

According to Henry Picado, a researcher with the RCB and member of Bloque Verde, Costa Rica’s pesticide industry has large yearly profits of $2.5 billion for imports and $700 million for exports, while, according to agronomist Elidier Vargas, the state annually loses $22-$27 million in tax exemptions to the sector.  It is concentrated in only a few hands – according to statistics from the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade (MEIC), 63% of glyphosate, 50% of paraquat and 98% of 2.4-D, respectively, are imported by one company each.

Costa Rica is also one of the cheapest countries in Latin America to license a pesticide product, with an average cost of $400, as compared to $1,500-$4,500 in Mexico, $2,000 in Uruguay and $8,500 in Argentina.

While the industry accumulates profits and enjoys tax exemptions and very low licensing costs, 64.3% of the fresh food consumed in Costa Rica contains pesticide residues. “It’s basically an invasion by these businesses of our homes, our tables, our bodies,” Picado said.

New film shows toll of heat stress on workers, plus world-leading protections developed in Nicaragua

Chapter 2 / Case studies / Sugar Cane

Positive news among so much violence and distortion of the meaning of ‘development’ comes from La Isla Network whose research aims to counter the effects of extreme heat stress from work in the sugar cane fields. Initially prompted by the epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of non-traditional sources (CKDnt) around the Ingenio San Antonio in Chichigalpa in Nicaragua, the Ingenio (sugar cane processing plant) and LIN were initially very much at odds with each other’s work; but they are now partners in research and in attempts to improve the working conditions of the sugar cane plantation workers.

Below LIN recounts details of the problems encountered in the sugar cane fields and tells of the research behind their videos and interventions. Their videos can be found at:

laislanetwork.org/media/videos/

October 20th, 2023

The latest film from La Isla Network with Talking Eyes Media, funded by the EU ENBEL project, demonstrates how worker protection protocols from extreme heat are saving workers’ lives. Once at odds, now La Isla Network and Ingenio San Antonio in Nicaragua — with a cohort of leading researchers on heat stress — are leading the world in modelling how to protect workers from exposure to extreme heat.

When workers are confronted with a heavy workload, exposure to heat, and poor labour protections, their risk for heat-driven illness, injury, and death increase. Though the body attempts to cool down, factors like ambient heat and the demands of the job mean workers’ bodies cannot cool down properly, note researchers Vidhya Venugopal and Andreas Flouris.

Mr. Flouris is an environmental physiologist studying how heat affects living organisms. He holds teaching positions at the University of Thessaly in Greece and the University of Ottawa, Canada. “There is an urgent need to address exposure to heat at work now, as our climate is changing faster than we had previously anticipated, while there are parts of the world — such as Europe — that are heating up much faster than the global average,” he says. “With heat waves increasing in severity, duration, and frequency in all parts of the world, exposure to heat at work is an issue of utmost urgency to address.”

In Nicaragua, by the time the sun has risen, sugarcane cutters at Ingenio San Antonio have begun work. They prepare for the workday. One of them carries a tarp that will serve as the shade tent: light and portable, yet highly effective.

Kristina Jakobsson is a medical doctor and researcher at the University of Gothenburg. She is also a member of the La Isla Network Scientific Advisory Board. For 20 years she has collaborated with colleagues the world over to understand the drivers behind chronic kidney disease of non-traditional causes among industrial agricultural workers.

After years of studies, researchers have found heat stress to be a driver of ill health. “Low-tech workplace interventions with regulated rest in shade, and access to water can protect workers,” she says. “This is old knowledge — nothing new, no rocket science — but our hope is that the combination of scientific evaluation, practical tools for workplace interventions, and a wider awareness of how heat affects work may lead to protection of the most vulnerable workforces.”

Since 2017, that has been possible in Central America, through the Adelante Initiative and the Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection (PREP) Programme. They are La Isla Network’s marquee worker protection programmes, being implemented in the world-renowned Ingenio San Antonio, known for producing the sugarcane needed for Flor de Caña Rum.

Dr. Denis Chavarría, Occupational Health Manager at Ingenio San Antonio, notes excitement at the mill’s continued partnership with La Isla network and Bonsucro, the global sustainability platform for sugarcane. He says, “As founding members of the Adelante Initiative, Ingenio San Antonio has helped develop pioneering programmes that have significantly improved worker safety and reduced heat-related risks, but most importantly, we are developing the highest standards in occupational safety and health that will have a profound impact globally not only in our industry, but also across other labour-intensive industries.”

The results from Adelante and PREP have been nothing short of remarkable: a 72% reduction in injuries, a 94% reduction in worker hospitalizations due to heat stress, a 20% increase in productivity and a return on investment of 22%. Further, we demonstrated that preventative measures were over 1,600% more affordable than treatment, providing relief for overstretched healthcare systems.

With results in hand, La Isla Network and its partners now seek to implement the model elsewhere, especially in the United States and Europe.

Jason Glaser, CEO and co-founder of La Isla Network, asks, “Why is it that in Ingenio San Antonio, in Nicaragua, there are better work protections for those field workers than any farm in the United States of America that’s facing similar heat stress?” Now, La Isla Network is making it its objective to bring home what the organisation has done abroad to the United States and Europe. At the same time, now that data is in-hand, the organisation and its partners are pushing for legislation to better protect workers.

La Isla Network and its partners are making good progress. Recently, the team sat before the United Nations Human Rights Committee to bring awareness to exposure to heat at work, for example. La Isla Network will continue the effort hand-in-hand with its partners.

An essential aspect of that objective is to communicate not only the extent of the problem, but also the solutions being implemented, in a visual manner. This film was produced with Talking Eyes Media, a nonprofit production organisation engaging the world in today’s most pressing issues with unmatched documentaries. The organisation began in 2002 when writer, filmmaker Julie Winokur and photojournalist Ed Kashi teamed up. Both bring decades of experience, and world renown, to the table.

Ed Kashi says, “My goal is to continue to raise awareness about exposure to heat at work and CKDnt, but also to create changes, so as to protect workers and disseminate vital stories and information through my storytelling work.” He has worked with La Isla Network for 10 years now.

Julie Winokur says, “Collaborating with La Isla to tell this story gives me hope. Visiting Nicaragua for this film was an opportunity to witness a successful intervention put into practice in one of the most challenging work environments imaginable.

“This film illustrates the level of scientific research and employer commitment needed to ensure worker safety and productivity despite a warming planet.”

The film was funded by the ENBEL project, the EU-funded research project connecting health and climate change. Kristin Aunan, research director at CICERO Centre for International Climate Research and coordinator of the ENBEL project, says, “Workers’ health in the face of climate change is often overlooked despite causing great human suffering and economic consequences in many places in the world. We hope this film and the work showcased in it will contribute to get this important topic higher on the agenda.”

La Isla Network would like to thank: Dr. Vidhya Venugopal, Dr. Andreas Flouris, Dr. Kristina Jakobsson, Dr. Rebeka Lucas, Denis Chavarría, Ed Kashi, Julie Winokur, Tom Laffay, Miriam Stackpole Dahl, and Kristin Aunan.

Banana prices have always been too low

Chapter 2 / Tropical Fruits

The following short article appeared in a Banana Link blog dated 12th December 2020. It was written by Angelica Hicks and Emily Gove who work for Equal Exchange Produce, a US for-profit organisation, similar in aims and practices to the UK’s Traidcraft and the UK’s Equal Exchange Trading. We are grateful to Angelica, Emily and Equal Exchange for permission to reproduce the article here and we urge our readers to visit the Equal Exchange website at:  equalexchange.coop . We are also grateful to Banana Link whose website is at: www.bananalink.org.uk .

By Angelica Hicks and Emily Gove
Equal Exchange Produce

December 2020

In the past two days, Del Monte, Dole and Chiquita have announced their intentions to add surcharges to their banana contracts in the US, following extensive damage to their operations in Central America as a result of hurricanes Eta and Iota. The news is making ripples across fresh produce publications and, very likely, produce industry boardrooms, and for good reason. It has the potential to force a conversation that is long overdue.

Equal Exchange Produce, a Fairtrade, organic importer in the US, has worked with small-scale farmer cooperatives for 15 years. Our banana partners work in Ecuador and Peru, and supply a relatively specialised market within the US, largely made up of independent, cooperative and natural foods stores. As a brand, we have often been alone in raising the topic of exploitative banana prices, in a market demanding both availability and cosmetics at a price that sustains neither of the two.

The reality is this: bananas are a labour-intensive crop. Any banana you find in a grocery store in the US[1] – whether conventional or organic – has been cut down from its plant in a massive cluster, carried on a shoulder, pulled to a pack shed, washed multiple times, cut into perfect bunches, stickered, packed and inspected, all by hand. The many people that contribute to the banana production process are also those that bear the consequences of low prices, which large retailers and conventional banana companies push down the supply chain until they land on the shoulders of farmers and workers.

The devastating hurricanes in Central America, which have destroyed upwards of 12,000 hectares in banana cultivation and impacted livelihoods across the region, are an important reason to pay more for bananas now. Still, it’s a shame that it takes a crisis of this magnitude to force a meaningful price increase, despite the well-documented externalised costs borne almost entirely by producer communities.

In the US consumers are conditioned to think that bananas are inherently cheap. What they don’t know is the impact of artificially low prices, or the precarious position in which they place farmers and workers.

Equal Exchange will continue to push for sustainable prices across the industry. We hope this moment signals a turning point in the industry conversation about the price – and value – of bananas.

[1]  And in the UK, we might add.

Environmental Racism? Pesticide banned in UK and EU shipped in vast quantities to Costa Rica.

Chapter 2 / Pesticide (ab)use

By secretary of the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA) Sheila Amoo-Gottfried.

Sheila has summarised the results of an investigation made largely by Greenpeace and Public Eye into what she calls ‘environmental racism’ by European agri-business transnational companies like Syngenta which have been sending fungicides that are banned here in Europe to countries of the Global South such as Costa Rica in this case.

Cipreses, a town on the fertile slopes of the Irazú volcano, north of San José, traditionally held ceremonies at the Plantón spring, praying for rain for the crops. Nine years ago, Isabel Méndez noticed a strong pesticide smell at the spring.  She raised her concerns to ASADA (the local water administrative association), but these were brushed off.

Chlorothalonil, the chemical used widely as a fungicide is banned as a potential carcinogen in the UK and EU and yet is shipped in large quantities to Costa Rica, and other countries in the Global South, by European companies like Syngenta.

Méndez, determined to fight for her community, partnered with Ricardo Rivera, a former ASADA administrator, and other concerned residents to form EcoCipreses.  Noticing that many people were getting sick in such a small place, samples were sent for testing and scientists confirmed the water springs were contaminated in Cipreses and the neighbouring town of Santa Rosa.  EcoCipreses advocacy led to national calls for a ban on Chlorothalonil, following these scientific reports. The government issued instructions not to drink tap water, and since then trucks have been rolling in to deliver drinking water to the affected communities.

“For nine years now”, says Méndez, “I’ve been fighting with other women in Cipreses to get Chlorothalonil banned, and we are making progress on what used to feel impossible:  Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court has given the Executive Branch of Government a deadline of six months to issue a ban.”

This ruling came into force in June 2023, but Isabel Méndez is well aware that Costa Rica’s complex decision-making system which requires relevant government ministries to all agree to the ban, along with the strong lobbying pressure coming from the agrochemical industry, could seriously delay definitive action.

In the meantime, to keep the pressure up, she has launched an online petition, gathering more than 52,500 signatures to put pressure on government ministers. “These last years have been very tough on my community.  Besides never having enough water, my daughter, Fiorella, had polyps at 16 and has now, at 23, lost her sense of smell and taste.  One of my neighbours has tongue cancer and several young people have been diagnosed with stomach cancer.  It’s alarming….   To make matters worse, some locals with the support of the pesticide lobby regularly harass, intimidate and threaten us with death because of our activism.”

EcoCipreses has concerns about the broader health and environmental impact on the whole region, which produces 80 per cent of Costa Rica’s vegetables, using similar quantities of fungicides, vastly exceeding safe consumption limits. The solutions are not easy. No-one knows how long people have been drinking contaminated water or what the effects on their health will be.  No one knows how widespread the contamination is across the country or how the pesticide traces can be removed from the springs already found to be tainted.

So, Isabel Méndez and her colleagues are determined to maintain maximum pressure. “As hard as it is, as hard as it’s been, we won’t give up because it isn’t just Cipreses’ and Santa Rosa’s springs … there could be plenty more. We feel we can’t let Syngenta use countries like ours – from Latin America to Africa – as dumping grounds for chemicals they can’t sell legally in Europe.”

Sources

  • Unearthed, (June 2023), ‘”Water is sacred too”: How a pesticide banned in Europe robbed a Costa Rican town of its drinking water’, Greenpeace, Public Eye, https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/pesticides/chlorothalonil-a-banned-pesticide-exported-from-europe
  • Euronews, 26 June 2023, ‘The EU and UK exported 1,000 tonnes of a banned pesticide to poorer countries, investigation reveals’,
  • Vinicio Chacón, 20 septiembre 2023, ‘Más de 52 mil personas piden prohibición de Clorotalonil’, Semanario Universidad.
  • Eko, 16 August 2023, Online petition: ‘EU: stop spreading banned chemicals’.

 

Freedom and fairness for Fyffes workers

Chapter 2 / Case studies / Tropical Fruits

screen-shot-2017-03-26-at-10-52-52The following article focuses on banana production with an examination of the practices of the major importing company Fyffes. I am grateful to Banana Link for permission to reproduce extracts from their article which appeared in the Make Fruit Fair! Newsletter of 23rd January 2017.

 Key words: Fyffes; labour rights; tropical fruit production; fair trade; supermarkets.

The Make Fruit Fair! Campaign is calling on Fyffes – the number one importer of bananas to Europe, and among the largest global marketer for Supersweet pineapples and winter season melons – to respect the rights of workers in its global supply chains. Read more about the campaign below.

Serious abuses of labour rights in Costa Rica and Honduras

screen-shot-2017-03-26-at-10-52-58“They never contributed to social insurance and now I will not be able to retire or finally rest after so many years spent on the plantations. I have to continue looking for work to survive.” – María Gómez (65) who worked for nearly 30 years as a supervisor at Melon Export SA.

Since the summer of 2015, the Make Fruit Fair! campaign has collected evidence of very serious violations of core labour standards at specific Fyffes’ subsidiaries: ANEXCO in Costa Rica and Suragroh and Melon Export SA in Honduras, where a largely female workforce, reliant on temporary seasonal work, is particularly vulnerable.

These violations include: failure to pay minimum wages and social insurance (an estimated £2.5m in pay and social insurance have been withheld); exposure of workers to hazardous agrochemicals; failure to respect freedom of association including threats, harassment and sacking of union members; and blocking collective bargaining processes.

In the case of Suragroh, Make Fruit Fair partners Banana Link and the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) have alleged breaches of the UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code for failure to respect unions and pay living wages, and Fyffes has refused to participate in local mediation to remedy these.

screen-shot-2017-03-26-at-10-53-04 “I got pregnant, and they do not allow pregnancy” – Marys Suyapa Gómez, sacked for being pregnant after working at Suragroh for 15 years

The Honduran Labour Inspectorate has also found non-payment of minimum wages and other statutory benefits. Additionally, a 2015 report by the U.S. Department of Labour confirmed allegations that Suragroh failed to pay the minimum wage, among a lengthy list of other violations.

Workers are required to provide their own work equipment such as hoes, machetes and shoes, the costs of which can amount to an entire week’s income.

Workers are also exposed to hazardous chemicals, many reporting headaches, sickness and high temperatures as a result, and report a lack of information about and training to avoid and be protected from the dangers of chemical exposure. In December 2015, about 100 women suffered poisoning, 14 of whom were hospitalised, after they were accidentally dropped off downwind of herbicide and chlorine spraying in an adjoining plot.

You can read more about working conditions at Suragroh here:

Meanwhile, at ANEXCO, dialogue facilitated by the Costa Rican Ministry of Labour has failed to provide a space in which local unions can negotiate with ANEXCO management and Fyffes, and the local unions report continued failure to comply with core labour standards enshrined in Costa Rican legislation.

The rights abuses at ANEXCO are the subject of an ongoing Make Fruit Fair urgent action launched in September 2015. The key demands of respect for labour rights and an end to harassment and discrimination against union members have yet to be met.

Both cases clearly illustrate that Fyffes is also in breach of OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for the failure to “Respect the right of their employees to be represented by trade unions”.

“Fyffes in Honduras does not respect the fundamental rights of women workers; the majority of employees are women who have up to 26 years of work without social security rights or social benefits. We demand respect for freedom of association and collective bargaining.” – Iris Munguía, Coordinator, COLSIBA (the Regional Coordination of Latin American Banana & Agro-Industrial Workers’ Unions)

Banana Link and many of our partners from Europe and Latin America wrote to Fyffes Chairman, David McCann, in November last year asking him to take action to address these issues, but received no response.

Despite Fyffes’ claim on its website that “if something isn’t working, we change the way we do it”, the company has failed to take responsibility in Costa Rica and Honduras.

No company, especially a company that professes to respect the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, should benefit from the appalling abuses suffered by those at the bottom of their supply chain.

An alliance of civil society organisations and trade unions, including unions in Costa Rica and Honduras, are calling on Fyffes to ensure that local plantation management

  • ends the discrimination of union members at Anexco (Costa Rica) and Suragroh (Honduras)
  • recognises unions at both Anexco (Costa Rica) and Suragroh (Honduras) and engages in collective bargaining with these unions to provide opportunity for workers to be represented in negotiations on pay and working conditions on plantations.

We are also calling for shareholders and directors with responsibility for Fyffes

  • to establish and implement a global company wide policy to ensure the respect of workers’ rights throughout its supply chains, including the right to join an independent trade union and for unions to engage in collective bargaining

screen-shot-2017-03-26-at-10-53-18“Fyffes must take responsibility for ensuring that their local managements in Costa Rica and Honduras recognise and enter into good faith negotiations with local unions and that company-wide freedom of association and collective bargaining is respected at every level.“ – Ron Oswald, General Secretary, International Union of Foodworkers.

Fyffes and Fairtrade

Fyffes are a significant trader of Fairtrade certified bananas in the UK. The Fairtrade mark is given to individual products not entire companies or their business practices. In the case of Fyffes only some of their produce is Fairtrade certified – the produce from the Fyffes subsidiaries in Costa Rica and Honduras is not covered by Fairtrade certification. Although Fairtrade Trader Standards do place ethical requirements on Fyffes, these requirements only cover farms that are part of certified supply chains, not those on non-certified farms.

Fyffes and UK supermarkets

We believe that supermarkets have a responsibility for ensuring ethical standards are respected throughout all of their supply chains. Most supermarkets in the UK buy some, or all, of their bananas through Fyffes. We, therefore, believe that these supermarkets have a responsibility for raising our concerns about labour rights with Fyffes. We have contacted all the UK supermarkets and the majority have responded and are in dialogue with Fyffes. But two supermarkets – Asda and Lidl – have not responded to our communications.

Relevant websites:

Banana Link – www.bananalink.org.uk

Make Fruit Fair! – www.makefruitfair.org

Ethical Trading Initiative – www.ethicaltrade.org

International Union of Food Workers (IUF) – www.iuf.org

Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) – www.fairtrade-advocacy.org

The rise of Rainforest Alliance

Chapter 2 / Case studies / Fair Trade

The previous article from the organisation Banana Link covered the certification of tropical fruit suppliers by the Rainforest Alliance. Banana Link has produced more information on certification by the Rainforest Alliance in the ‘Banana Trade News Bulletin No.55 (August 2016). Given that this issue affects us all as consumers of tropical fruits and users of supermarkets, this further information is reproduced here.

Reproduced by kind permission of Banana Link – www.bananalink.org.uk

Key words: Rainforest Alliance; certification; SAN standards; supermarkets; banana production.

RA certified products (which today include bananas, pineapples, coffee, tea, palm oil and a great many other commodities) are increasingly popular with retailers and other businesses which offer cheap food and drink. Among the companies selling products which carry the RA’s green frog logo are McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, Kraft, Unilever, Mars and a great many others not usually perceived as particularly socially or environmentally responsible.

To gain RA certification, banana and pineapple plantations have to comply with Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) standards, developed and revised by its International Standards Committee, composed of SAN’s Secretariat and currently a group of 9 experts.

Use of the RA label has expanded rapidly, particularly in coffee, cocoa, tea and bananas since 2010. Around 1 million Metric Tonnes of bananas were certified in 2010. Today over 6 million tonnes display the frog logo, meaning that 5.5% of world banana exports were RA certified in 2014.

This is an impressive achievement, but the rapid expansion of RA certification has invited a growing suspicion that much of its success can be attributed to the laxity of the standards themselves and the undemanding nature of the RA certification process.

SAN standards

Within the Sustainable Agriculture Standard, there are 100 criteria, grouped under ten guiding principles. Six of these principles involve ecological criteria, one relates to management systems and the other three contain social criteria. Of the 100 criteria, 16 are critical and have to be passed to achieve RA certification.

The critical environmental criteria require the protection of existing ecosystems on the farm, the non-destruction of rainforest for farming activities and an embargo on hunting wild animals. Farms may not discharge waste into natural water systems and there is a list of forbidden chemical and biological substances.

The critical social criteria require that:

  • farms do not employ children under the age of 15, use forced labour or apply discriminatory employment practices;
  • workers must have the right to organize freely and to negotiate their working conditions collectively;
  • farms must have and divulge a policy guaranteeing this right and must not impede workers from forming or joining trade unions or from undertaking collective bargaining; and
  • wages should at least equal the regional average or legally established minimums.

Other critical criteria include, in the area of health and safety, that workers in contact with agrochemicals should use personal protective equipment and, in the area of community relations, that farms should put in place policies and procedures which identify and take into account the interests of local populations.

In addition to complying with the critical criteria, farms must also comply with at least 50 per cent of the applicable criteria, relating to each of the ten guiding principles and at least 80 per cent of the total applicable criteria of the Sustainable Agriculture Standard. 46 per cent of all criteria are checked in each individual audit.

Although it’s not possible to analyse the SAN criteria in detail here, it is worth noting that the critical criteria are mostly requirements which are already contained in national legislation, existing company Codes of Practice and in other standards such as GlobalGAP, which are already required by EU retailers selling imported bananas and pineapples. Only one criteria relating to restoration of natural ecosystems appears to add value beyond usual pre-existent requirements.

When it comes to non-critical criteria, there is enough flexibility in the requirements to make it possible for most commercial banana and pineapple plantations to achieve certification without any great difficulty.

Certification

SAN authorizes a number of bodies to audit farms and approve certification. 84% of all certifications for all products are carried out by a division of the Rainforest Alliance, RA-Cert (also known as Sustainable Farm Certification International Ltd., SFC). The remaining 16% are mostly carried out in regions which do not export bananas or pineapples to the EU, which means that 100% (or very nearly 100%) of banana and pineapple plantation audits are carried out effectively by Rainforest Alliance itself. As a leading member of SAN, Rainforest Alliance sets its standards and as the owner of RA Cert it also audits farms.

Where violations are found, plantations are normally given warnings, encouraging them to improve performance in future. There is a system for whistle-blowing and RA usually responds quickly to allegations. Some complainants report however that making and following up a complaint can involve a lot of time and effort and there can be no guarantee that they will be satisfied by the outcome.

The only external challenges to the system tend to come from trade unions and civil society organisations which know about the daily realities of life on RA Certified farms. Neither of these agencies have the financial resources to monitor RA farms systematically. Nevertheless, when they do find the resources to investigate, violations of standards (including critical criteria) appear to be almost invariably found. This inevitably raises questions as to the overall reliability of RA and its certification system.

Do certified farms comply with SAN Standards?

It is not always easy for external agencies to get access to farms. This makes it difficult to assess RA’s environmental impacts in any detail. It is easier to assess the Alliance’s social impact as information can be obtained, if necessary, by interviewing workers and trade union organisers outside the plantation gates.

Preliminary investigations of RA’s performance in banana and pineapple farms have been carried out by Banana Link (UK), by Oxfam Germany, by a number of Latin American trade unions and by SOMO Netherlands – for the tea, coffee and flower sectors. Their findings are briefly outlined below:

In Costa Rica, in Ecuador, in Honduras and in Guatemala (and in Kenya for tea) researchers found Rainforest Alliance Certified farms where:

  • Trade union membership and activities were suppressed and unionised workers sacked
  • Wages paid were below the legal minimum requirement
  • Hours worked exceeded legal limits and overtime was not paid
  • Areas for eating and sanitary facilities were not provided
  • Migrant workers were contracted at lower rates than national workers
  • Use of subcontractors generated instability in the workplace
  • Safety equipment was inadequate and agrochemical contamination occurred
  • Workers suffered health problems associated with the use of agrochemicals
  • Contracts without social security and other social guarantees were used
  • There was evidence of environmental non-compliance

Ecuador and Costa Rica are the biggest suppliers of bananas to the EU. Costa Rica is the biggest supplier of pineapples. Some of the farms investigated are known to supply Lidl (and also Aldi).

So does Rainforest certification deliver?

It would appear that RA certification does not provide a guarantee that even such “critical criteria” as basic labour rights or payment of minimum wages have been respected.

The SAN and RA aspire to offer sustainable tropical fruit and to do this at no extra cost to consumers. When supermarkets offer fruit to consumers at exceptionally low prices however they need in turn to buy from their own suppliers at the lowest possible prices.

“Hard discounters” like Lidl and its competitor, Aldi have driven prices down to levels not seen since the 1970s  Other supermarkets are trying to match these low prices but costs to producers have risen dramatically in this period.

Can it be realistic to expect banana and pineapple growers to produce sustainably when the prices they are paid barely cover the costs of production? Is it surprising that, when researchers investigate RA Certified farms, they find that SAN standards are not being met? Producers have to pay RA for certification which adds further to their costs. When low prices are paid to producers it makes it more difficult for them to meet the costs of sustainable production and this makes it more likely that production systems will lead to negative social and environmental impacts.

It is also worth pointing out that Oxfam Germany has published a report ‘Sweet Fruit, Bitter Truth’ which alleges that inhumane conditions exist on many Costa Rican pineapple farms and Ecuadorean banana operations, laying the ultimate blame for this on Germany’s leading discount retailers such as Lidl, which also operates in the UK. Oxfam alleges underpayment, dangerous pesticide exposure and inhumane living conditions across a range of farms. The report can be found at: http://makefruitfair.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Sweet-fruit-bitter-truth.pdf

Palm oil production in Honduras

Chapter 2 / Palm Oil

2007palmoil1-195x300African Oil Palm was first introduced to Honduras in 1927 and by the 1970s there were 11,000 hectares planted throughout the northern part of the country.[1] Traditionally, Honduran palm oil has been produced for use in the food industry to make products such as margarine and cooking oil. In 2006, however, the Honduran government launched a five year program to promote the use of agrifuels with the aim of expanding the total cultivation area of 84,000 hectares by 200,000 hectares.[2]

Honduras is the biggest exporter of palm oil in Central America, accounting for around 45per cent of its production. About 50 per cent of Honduran palm oil is exported.[3] Most production is still concentrated along the Caribbean coast of Honduras with about 68,000 hectares of palm planted along the coastal plains of Atlántida and the Sula and Aguán valleys.[4] Production and processing co-operatives and multinationals are the main producers (accounting for 68 per cent and 29 per cent respectively)[5].

Problems created by monoculture oil palm plantations include:

  • Replacement of tropical forests and other ecosystems;
  • Loss of biodiversity;
  • Flooding;
  • Soil erosion;
  • Soil contamination;
  • Pollution of water courses;
  • Increase in pests due to breakdown in the ecological balance and to changes in the food chain;
  • Depletion of water resources;
  • The use of agrochemicals contaminates workers and local communities;
  • Coral reef contamination – see below.

In Atlántida, the oil palm plantations are located where numerous large rivers flow down from the Nombre de Dios mountain range into the sea. This has increased the delivery of sediment, nutrients and other pollutants which impact the Mesoamerican Reef, the biggest coral reef system in the Americas and the second largest in the world.[6]

The International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN) Mesoamerican Reef project was set up with support from the UN and World Wildlife Fund to provide comprehensive watershed analysis and to examine the impact of different land uses – including palm oil agriculture – on water quality.[7]

[1] Integrating Small-scale Producers in Agrifood Chains: The Case of the Palm Oil Industry in Honduras by Ingrid Fromm (http://ifama.org/tamu/iama/conferences/2007Conference/SymposiumPapers_files/1024_Paper.pdf) (Accessed 15/07/09)
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.cababstractsplus.org/abstracts/Abstract.aspx?AcNo=19871844263 (Accessed 15/07/09)
[4] http://central-america.panda.org/about/countries/honduras/?uNewsID=107200 (Accessed 15/07/09)
[5] See note 3
[6] Watershed Analysis for the Mesoamerican Reef (http://www.wri.org/project/watershed-analysis-mesoamerican-reef) (Accessed 15/07/09)
[7] Ibid.