Cocoa-farming communities confront daunting obstacles, encompassing rural poverty, rising climate uncertainties, and limited access to essential services like healthcare, education, and water. Such challenges can give rise to social problems, including the potential for child labour risks on family farms. Nestlé's announcement of an innovative plan seeks to address these issues by assisting families in bridging the gap to achieve a living income. This approach aims to combat child labour risks and deforestation, forming a critical element of Nestlé's action plan to enhance living incomes and tackle salient human rights concerns. However, Nestlé's approach raises concerns as it fails to acknowledge the industry's role in disempowering farmers from being able to price their produce to reflect their cost of production and dream working conditions of workers, contributing to the poverty situation. Instead, Nestle's focus is diverted to the demographic and environmental characteristics of the farmers as the cause of their poverty, overshadowing the industry's role in perpetuating these challenges and reliance on child labour.
The Promise of Conditional Aid:
Nestlé's press release, focusing on combating child labour risks through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and their monitoring and remediation system, highlights a critical and complex issue in the cocoa sector. Child labour, as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO), is work that deprives children of their childhood, potential, and dignity and harms their physical and mental development. However, the definition of child labour is not straightforward, and the nuances and complexities surrounding it are often lost or overlooked in the quest to address the issue.
One of the key complexities lies in distinguishing between child work and child labour. While child labour involves harmful work that deprives children of their rights and development, it can encompass light tasks or activities that may not harm a child's well-being and may even contribute positively to their learning and skill development. Thus, it becomes crucial to balance protecting children from harmful labour and recognising their right to participate in age-appropriate work that benefits them.
Additionally, the cultural and socio-economic context significantly shapes the perception and prevalence of child labour. In many cocoa-producing regions, children have contributed to family farming activities for generations. While some forms of child work are essential for the survival of farming families and transmit valuable skills and knowledge to the younger generation, others may involve hazardous tasks and exploitation. Addressing child labour requires a nuanced approach that acknowledges cultural practices while simultaneously safeguarding children from harm.
The complexities of the definition extend to the age range of child labourers. The ILO sets the minimum age for hazardous work at 18, but in some countries, the legal working age may be lower, leading to variations in interpretations and enforcement. Different countries may also have different socio-economic circumstances, making it challenging to have a one-size-fits-all approach to combating child labour.
Nestlé's holistic approach, aiming to incentivise the enrollment of children in school and promote regenerative agriculture practices and gender equality, acknowledges some of these complexities. By rewarding practices that increase crop productivity and securing additional sources of income, the program seeks to address the root causes of child labour, such as poverty and lack of access to education. However, the challenge lies in ensuring that these incentives truly lead to meaningful change and do not inadvertently perpetuate exploitative systems.
Their conditional aid approach's inherent contradictions and limitations become apparent upon closer examination. As an expert, I question the effectiveness of simply handing out money to farmers to solve child labour. I ask, "How does handing out money to a farmer fix child labour? What is Nestlé's inherent understanding of child labour, and how does this money handout fix it?" While financial resources are undoubtedly crucial for farmers, incentivising parents to send their children to school can be seen as an insult to their sense of responsibility. This is because it inherently postures the farmer as intentionally not sending their kids to school while having the resources. By solely focusing on financial incentives, Nestlé disempowers farmers, disenfranchises them and consolidates power in their own hands. It allows Nestle to be seen as the good guy trying to do good to the farmer who has been doing bad. Nestle, publishing this, claims public goodwill, which increases their brand equity, exploit the farmers' financial vulnerabilities and social pressures to build their brands. Again, the financial incentive can be argued as Nestle buying their way to access the farmers directly to be able to achieve their traceability objectives. I am sure readers may say, “But Kwame, Nestle at least has acted because, with their current power in the sector, they practical have nothing to lose if they don’t act, anyway”. Yes, that is precisely the problem. The fact that the farmers’ weakness is still being exploited creates a reliance on Nestle. This deepens farmers’ poverty, and makes them subservient to big corporations, which has consequences today and tomorrow.
Empowering Farmers for Sustainable Change:
Empowering cocoa farmers for sustainable change requires a more comprehensive and transformative approach than the conditional aid and monetary incentives presented in Nestlé's press release. While financial support may provide short-term relief, it falls short of addressing the systemic issues perpetuating child labour and hindering sustainable farming practices in the cocoa sector.
Decommodifying cocoa beans, as I propose, entails shifting away from the current system where cocoa farmers are subject to volatile and unfair prices dictated by market forces. Instead, empowering farmers to set fair prices that reflect their production costs, profit margins, and working conditions would grant them a sense of agency and ownership over their produce. This move towards price transparency and equity would mark a significant step in dismantling exploitative practices contributing to child labour.
To understand the potential impact of such a transformative shift, we can draw a comparison with the Fairtrade movement in the cocoa industry. Fairtrade certification claims to ensure farmers receive a fair and stable price for their cocoa beans and additional social premiums that benefit their communities.
However, it is essential to recognise that the Fairtrade system has challenges and limitations. I have argued that the Fairtrade premium may not be enough to address the root causes of poverty and child labour, especially in regions with high living costs. Additionally, the certification process can be costly and inaccessible to some farmers, excluding them from Fairtrade benefits.
Nestlé's approach, therefore, should consider the lessons learned from Fairtrade and strive to create a more inclusive and equitable system. By engaging farmers as genuine partners and granting them greater control over pricing mechanisms, Nestlé can foster a more collaborative and respectful relationship with cocoa farmers. Such an approach goes beyond mere token gestures and monetary incentives, empowering farmers to become active decision-makers in the value chain.
Furthermore, Nestlé's commitment to promoting sustainable farming practices is commendable, but it must be matched with concrete actions that enable farmers to adopt these practices effectively. Access to training, resources, and technical support is crucial to ensuring that farmers can implement regenerative agriculture practices successfully. Such support enhances farmers' productivity and contributes to environmental preservation and long-term sustainability.
Sustainable Income Generation:
While Nestlé touts increased farmer income as a positive outcome, I argue that sustainable income generation cannot be achieved through conditional aid or handouts. Farmers should have the autonomy to purchase their own fertilisers, ensure fair wages for labourers, and invest in their farms and communities. By enabling farmers to determine their own product prices, as Nestlé does for its chocolate, they can become independent businesspeople with increased bargaining power.
In conclusion, Nestlé must transcend the conditional aid approach and embrace a more transformative and equitable strategy to address child labour risks and promote sustainable farming practices. By advocating for the decommodification of cocoa beans and empowering farmers as active participants in the value chain, Nestlé can create a sustainable and meaningful impact. Drawing lessons from the Fairtrade movement and ensuring comprehensive support for farmers in adopting regenerative practices will be key to achieving genuine and lasting change in the cocoa sector. As we navigate the complexities and challenges of eradicating child labour, it is essential for Nestlé and other stakeholders to stay committed to continuous learning and collaboration with cocoa farmers and communities. Only through collective efforts and shared responsibility can we pave the way for a cocoa industry that genuinely prioritises the well-being of farmers and eradicates child labour.
Deeply insightful perspective on this important sustainability-related topic, thank you for taking the time to share it. I live in Colombia and have had some interaction with cacao growers here, and I believe that decommodification would have tremendous benefits for farmers everywhere. The child labor risk is not as pronounced here, and more smallholders (I think), but there are other related risks that decommodification would help to address.