Decent Livelihoods
Our producers toil night and day to provide us with our basic necessities. Fairtrade’s goal is to make their lives better and provide them with decent livelihoods.
736 million people living in extreme poverty worldwide
About 80 percent of poverty stricken people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for survival.
Livelihood
decent enough?
A decent standard of living that covers basic needs and supports an existence worthy of human dignity is a human right. But small-scale farmers and agricultural workers, despite growing the crops that drive supply chains worth billions on the global market, too often live in poverty.
Cheap food comes at a cost: the exploitation of farmers and workers at the start of the supply chain. It is unacceptable and unsustainable that the people who grow and harvest much of the world’s food do not get paid enough to make a decent living. Farmers who own their own land face different challenges than agricultural workers working on someone else’s land.
Fairtrade
paving new paths
The pathways to a decent living will be different for farmers and workers. This is why we have developed two strategies:
1. Living income for small-scale farmers
2. Living wage for hired workers
Here are some of the ways Fairtrade contributes to a decent living:
- The Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium provide important price protection and additional funds to farmers and workers.
- The Fairtrade Standards require employers to incrementally increase wages to reach a living wage. We co-founded the Global Living Wage Coalition, and support the development of living wage benchmarks for specific countries and regions.
- Fairtrade has developed the concept of a Living Income Reference Price, which indicates the price needed for full-time farmers with adequate, sustainable productivity levels to earn a living income.
- We promote workers’ organising in trade unions so that they can bargain collectively for better wages.
- To support producers in selling more of their produce on Fairtrade terms and receiving the price and premium benefits, we developed a model for companies to source more and more ingredients within a final packaged product.
- We are raising our voices to bring attention to this issue, with other committed partners, to encourage actions by governments, companies and consumers that will make progress toward farmers and workers earning a decent living. Read more details about our work on farmer incomes and workers’ wages.
Our work towards decent incomes for small scale farmers and workers contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 1 (no poverty) and SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 8 (decent work), and SDG 12 (sustainable consumption and production).
The ability to earn a decent living offers the next generation of farmers and workers a sustainable future. It will require everyone playing their part – including shoppers choosing to stand up for farmer and worker livelihoods. Decent work and a decent living – it’s not too much to ask, right?
Get Involved
Make Fairtrade part of your everyday life. Find out how you can get involved in the movement to make trade equitable and sustainable.
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