From improving living and working conditions, to protection from climate change and improved productivity and quality, Fairtrade supports sustainable practices across the board.
The Fairtrade Minimum Price provides a safety net for farmers, resulting in improved cash flow and more stable incomes that helps them to plan and save for the future. It also works to offers better food security as a stable income means that workers can invest in new business ventures and personal projects, such as generating alternative food sources - including growing their own crops.
The Fairtrade Premium also enables farmers and workers to invest in their communities to improve access to basic services, like running water and sanitary blocks. Communities are greatly involved in determining their needs to identify where the money can have the greatest impact.
Fairtrade Standards also aim to protect the workers in several ways: it ensures that they are given a safe working environment, the right to join a trade union and negotiate with their employer on wages and conditions, preventing exploitation, discrimination and greatly reducing on site risks. Furthermore, they ensure that employers to comply with training requirements, sustainable production practices and improved quality guidelines so that they become more reliable suppliers and stable business partners.
Fairtrade believes the role of women in agriculture needs more visibility, recognition and value, and that gender equity is important to social sustainability. Businesses. The Fairtrade Standards contain compliance requirements to enable women to gain access to and control of resources. For example, in 2012, the Fairtrade Kabng'etuny Coffee Farmers' Cooperative Society launched a coffee bush transfer model from husband to wife or father to daughter, enabling women to own coffee assets for the first time. At least 50 coffee bushes per household were transferred from men to women and by early 2018, the women were generating an independent income from coffee farming and introduced a women-owned brand in the local market: Zawadi Coffee.*
