Hope in the Shade of Cocoa Trees

Ouedraogo Boureima was just four years old when, in 1985, his family left their village in Burkina Faso and walked across the border and into Côte d’Ivoire. They brought only the clothes on their backs, two sheep, four cooking pots, food for travel and a picture of their ancestors. The family traveled south and then west, finally settling in the rural community of Blolequin, where Ouedraogo’s father declared that he would support them as a cocoa farmer.

Ouedraogo’s family planted and then cultivated cocoa trees, and they built a new life for themselves. Ouedraogo came of age and eventually joined his father in the cocoa fields. Then in 2011, the Second Ivoirian Civil War broke out, leaving Blolequin in shambles with dozens killed, and forcing the family to retreat to Burkina Faso. Last year, as a measure of peace began to settle back over the land, Ouedraogo returned to Côte d’Ivoire.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” explains Ouedraogo Boureima.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” he explains. Now 31, Ouedraogo is carrying his father’s dream forward. It is a dream shared by more than 4.5 million people in Côte d’Ivoire, who depend on cocoa for their livelihoods. But as the Boureima family knows well, cocoa is an industry fraught with challenges, including price volatility, farmer exploitation, low wages and child labor, in a country plagued by political instability.

Despite the war’s end, political unrest continues to threaten Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa crop—already under pressure from pests, fungi, unsustainable farming techniques, climate change and drought—while global cocoa demand climbs steadily at a rate of three percent a year. At the same time, increasingly low yields raise concerns about future cocoa shortages and hurt the incomes and aspirations of millions of Ivoirians.

In 2008, the Rainforest Alliance began to introduce socially, environmentally and economically sustainable practices to farmers in Côte d’Ivoire—helping farmers increase their yields and their profits, and improve their lives. Ouedraogo is one of tens of thousands of farmers in Côte d’Ivoire who have benefited from Rainforest Alliance certification.

In an effort to improve his family’s life, in 2011 he joined a cooperative of cocoa farmers working toward Rainforest Alliance certification. Many farmers in his community were initially skeptical of certification. The country’s history of violence and political unrest colored their perception; over the years, they had been approached by a number of NGOs offering aid, but in the end, they all failed to deliver on their promises. Desperate to support his family, Ouedraogo was willing to accept the possibility that certification would not pan out.

Ouedraogo Boureima (third row center, yellow shirt) with Rainforest Alliance staff and other members of the COABOB co-op.

Just one year later, Ouedraogo’s understanding of certification has evolved substantially. As with many farmers, it was initially talk of a price premium that attracted him. In actuality, certification does not guarantee a price premium, but higher yields resulting from the techniques promoted by the Rainforest Alliance have improved farmers lives. A 2012 study found that net income on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Côte d’Ivoire was 291 percent higher than on noncertified farms.

As Ouedraogo and other farmers have learned, however, higher incomes are just one aspect of the complex journey to sustainability. Now in its second year, Ouedraogo’s Rainforest Alliance Certified cooperative COABOB is composed of 798 farmers who have a much deeper understanding of the challenges and benefits of certification. It was a struggle, for example, for many farmers to accept certification requirements that prohibit the use of toxic agrochemicals and encourage the use of alternative methods to control pests and add nutrients to the soil. With decreasing yields, many farmers felt pressure to increase their use of pesticide and chemical fertilizers on cocoa trees “It takes the Rainforest Alliance training and an outside perspective to understand that these chemicals are not long term solutions,” explains Ouedraogo.

Certification has led to other on-farm improvements, as well. Through his work with the Rainforest Alliance, Ouedraogo learned to prune his trees (cutting away old, dead and diseased branches) and put a mixture of wood shavings and composted cocoa pods around the base of each cocoa tree (helping to keep the soil around the trees’ roots moist).  He has also planted a variety of trees on his farm to protect his cocoa from the sun and enrich his soil.

This year, Ouedraogo noticed that his trees had sprouted new, healthy growth. He is hopeful that his harvest will be larger as a result. If other certified farms in the country are any indication, he will get his wish. Certified cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire have produced 72 percent more than their uncertified counterparts.

“I am starting to believe that I can think long term, something that I have never been able to do before,” Ouedraogo says. “I want to practice farming techniques that will allow my son to have a future on this same land.” He feels hopeful knowing that there are consumers demanding certified products. “There are people who believe in what I am doing,” he says, smiling.  “This makes the world feel smaller and gives me pride in my work.”

Thanks to commitments from leading brands like Mars, Unilever, Kraft and Hershey, the Rainforest Alliance’s certification work in Côte d’Ivoire has experienced remarkable growth. Over the last six years, 85,000 Ivorian farms covering more than one million acres (410,000 hectares) have become Rainforest Alliance Certified.  Companies now recognize that environmental, social and economic sustainability are essential to securing the global cocoa supply—and that Rainforest Alliance certification can help to accomplish these goals.

Part I: What Can We Learn From Brazil?

Chad Trewick is senior director of coffee and tea at Caribou Coffee – the first major coffee company in the US to source 100 percent of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. Here, he writes about a recent trip to Brazil to explore sustainable coffee production.

Brazil is a generation (maybe even two or three) ahead of the rest of the coffee-producing world in terms of technology, efficiency, sustainability and productivity per area. In fact, practices in the world’s most important coffee-producing country could pave the way for sustainable coffee production globally, securing a steady supply in the face of climate change, volatility and land-use pressures. The country is not, however, impervious to those changes; this year, folks in Brazil experienced the first June rainfall in collective memory, causing quality compromises and headaches for everyone involved in coffee production.

As part of an ongoing project with the Rainforest Alliance designed to determine the measurable benefits and value of certification, I embarked on a trip with the organization’s Sustainable Agriculture Network partner in Brazil, Imaflora. The goal was to see and understand innovations and best practices in sustainability, and to share these with producers and exporters in other countries.

On our way to our first stop, Rodrigo Cascalles of Imaflora and I discussed how we can determine the objective “value” of certification. It should come as no surprise that typically the top motivation for certification is the price premium a producer can receive. But while the financial benefit is huge incentive, other reasons weigh heavily, too.

Leaders in Environmental Law

Brazilian social and environmental laws are nearly unparalleled in agriculture. Twenty percent of a producer’s land must be set aside as a forest reserve; waterways are strictly protected; and rigid social laws governing labor conditions and services abound.

According Imaflora, complying with Brazilian regulations will bring any law-abiding producer as much as 90 percent of the way to certification! (For comparison, picture the agricultural landscape in the US — we plant crops right up to just about any body of water, roadway or abode.) A few months ago, however, laws changed and the waterway protection rules became dependent on the size of the river or lake. In some cases, less protection is now required. New laws also reward producers who exceed their requirements for natural reserves, permitting them to receive payment from other producers who need to comply with the reserve area requirements.

Protectors of People

Farmers also speak of the rigorous social requirements imposed by the government. Any worker who steps onto a farm to work must first receive a baseline medical exam. The government also mandates worker housing, setting minimum standards for the exact space each worker is allotted, the size and thickness of his mattresses (including its distance from the ceiling and the space between mattresses), and the layout of bathroom facilities and eating areas. Conditions in the field are also carefully defined: sunscreen must be available for use; arms and necks must be covered by clothing; drinking water must be available; a shade tent must be provided; portable toilets must be on site, and ankles need to be covered to protect from snakes. Compared to conditions I see regularly on farms in other countries, these mandates are absolutely amazing — but, as I was reminded several times, it is also a lot for a producer to be held accountable for.

Rainforest Alliance Certification in Brazil

Producers pointed out that the government is much less likely to inspect and enforce national regulations on a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm because they know that the farm must be in compliance in order to be certified.  However, because Rainforest Alliance certification requires compliance with all local mandates, the cost of production for law-abiding and certified producers is actually significantly higher than the national average. We need to continuously highlight the benefits of certification — and not only the incremental costs  – in conversations with all members of the supply chain. The cost of certification shouldn’t overshadow the very real on-the-ground benefits. The fact that Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are considered the best places to work for a laborer highlights the better conditions on these farms.

Farmers also receive a sought-after premium for their Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee. And, when they implement production efficiencies, they can maximize these premiums.

The record-keeping and continuous improvement requirements mandated by the Rainforest Alliance provide tangible productivity benefits. A producer’s logged activities are studied and evaluated annually so that they can improve their conditions and reduce their resource usage.

Certification also results in improvements in flora and fauna. Most farmers I spoke with truly celebrated (in an unsolicited way) all of the species and the natural elements that are returning to their farms and, in some cases, even benefiting their operations. They told me about native bird species, increased wild boar sightings, and diversified native species planted in forest reserves. This appreciation of nature is being passed to future generations and the broader community, and helping to create a culture with a deeper respect for nature.

Certified farms are also required to be responsible members of their communities. Many are involved in school improvement projects and clean-up efforts, and place a great emphasis on educating students about the importance of caring for the environment. This can be a particularly effective tool for educating adults. Children of farm workers can take messages home and begin the process of educating their parents. Students also learn to be better guardians of their limited resources. At one school, for example, students were asked to turn trash into usable items to demonstrate that most things can (and should) be more than single-use.

Cooperatives in Brazil

As in many other countries, cooperatives in Brazil can provide an opportunity for increased efficiency because producers are working with greater crop volume. And through their technical assistance programs, many cooperatives are actively encouraging certification.

I visited one coop on a multi-year plan toward 100 percent certification among its members by 2014. Another coop was working toward 70 to 80 percent certification by the end of next year.  This widespread certification support among coops is a great endorsement and empowers producers to make the decision to pursue certification.

Check back to read part II of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

Good News for Cocoa and the Global Food System

Eric Servat, senior manager of the Rainforest Alliance’s cocoa program, talks about the growth and challenges of our cocoa work.

While Halloween is the peak time for chocolate news in the US, the holidays are  our peak chocolate eating season.   Any chocolate enjoyed in the US is likely to contain cocoa grown in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer.  And cocoa beans from Côte d’Ivoire are now increasingly likely to be grown on Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM farms.

Rainforest Alliance certification has grown phenomenally in Côte d’Ivoire since leading brands such as Mars, Unilever, Kraft and Hershey, and processors such as Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest chocolate manufacturer, committed to sourcing their cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. Some 75,000 Ivorian farms, covering more than 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares), have become Rainforest Alliance Certified in just the last six years.  This massive expansion is driven by the recognition that cocoa farmers’ incomes and yields need to rise dramatically to make cocoa production  sustainable, and that certification can help accomplish these goals.

There are more than a million cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, the vast majority of them smallholders, plus another 3.5 million Ivorians who depend on income from cocoa-related activities.  After a brief spike during the 2011 civil conflict, prices paid to farmers for cocoa beans are again low. Until recently, Ivorian farmers received a fraction of what cocoa sold for on commodities markets in London and New York.  Côte d’Ivoire has a long history of price volatility, exploited smallholders earning low wages and child labor.

These are intertwined, systemic and longstanding problems.  But they’re problems with consequences too severe to tolerate, and the new Ivorian government acknowledges that they must be remedied.  Unfair cocoa prices and poverty wages for cocoa farmers have been cited as important factors in Côte d’Ivoire’s political instability during the last 11 years of civil war.  The Nation wrote in 2011, “The fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again [in Côte d'Ivoire is] a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources.”

Unrest in Côte d’Ivoire threatened disruptions in cocoa supply, already under long-term pressure from pests, fungi, unsustainable farming techniques and, increasingly, climate change and drought.  Supply will have to increase steadily to meet progressively climbing demand  — for the last century, cocoa demand has grown consistently at a rate of 3 percent a year.   Low yields have raised speculation about future cocoa shortages.  More fundamentally, low yields and inadequate incomes undercut the aspirations of millions of Ivorians for better lives for themselves and their families, and basic equity for growers of this $5 billion global commodity.

The key to achieving justice for Ivorians and an adequate future supply of cocoa for consumers is to raise yields dramatically.  It can certainly be done.  After working with USDA and IBM to map the cocoa genome, Mars announced this year it knows how to raise yields from 400 kg per hectare to 1,500 kg. Beyond assuring future supply, higher yields generate higher income for farmers, and reduce economic pressures that exploit smallholders and draw children into working on the farms.

Since 2008 the Rainforest Alliance has worked with multiple stakeholders to make cocoa production sustainable and raise yields and profitability. In Côte d’Ivoire and elsewhere, Rainforest Alliance Certified farms rely on sustainable soil, crop, pest, water and energy management to cut costs and raise yields on existing farmland, without clearing forestland for crops or resorting to damaging slash-and-burn, chemical-intensive methods.  The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) recently studied the impact of Rainforest Alliance certification on cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire.   It found that after adopting sustainable techniques and becoming certified, farms increased their yields 58 percent, and raised their net incomes by almost a factor of four.

Meanwhile, the Coffee and Cocoa Council issued this new reform, which  has raised expectations; their objectives are to promote transparency, sustainability, fair pricing and farmers group strengthening.   We’re confident that as certification grows, and collaboration continues to improve among the key actors, so will the lives of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.

Problems there remain entrenched — prices and yields generally are low, farms are vulnerable, examples of child labor and other abuses aren’t yet hard to find, future and sustainable supply isn’t yet secure.  Farmers and those who depend on them are still poor and competing for scarce resources.  But certification has proven an efficient tool for increasing yields and multiplying farmers’ incomes, putting more farms and livelihoods on a sustainable footing.

Globally, we’re facing rising food demand as the population heads to 10 billion by mid-century and emerging economies eat higher on the food chain.  To meet this demand, the global food system must do what Côte d’Ivoire is now doing: working with stakeholders to raise yields on existing farmland sustainably, without clearing more forests, degrading more grazing land or exacerbating climate change and biodiversity loss. Rainforest Alliance certification offers a body of evidence that argues this can be done, and is being done, by adopting environmentally and socially sustainable farming practices that help local ecosystems and communities thrive together.

A Sustainable Future for Vietnam

Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator, shares stories from her recent trip to meet with coffee farmers in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam.

As my plane descended into Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak province, I peered down at the rectangular plots of coffee plants stretching neat and green across the fertile landscape.  Three flights and two days after leaving New York City, I’d finally landed in Vietnam’s “capital of coffee,” known for decades as the heart of Vietnam’s flourishing coffee industry.

Vietnam has a vibrant coffee culture.

Accompanying me was Pham Tuong Vinh, Vietnam country coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable landscapes team. During the car ride from the airport to our hotel, Vinh pointed out the multitude of cafés populating every street. Though the average consumer in the West may not immediately associate Vietnam with coffee, this Southeast Asian nation boasts a vibrant coffee culture and is actually the second largest coffee exporter in the world. It is also the number one exporter of Robusta coffee, a variety that is cheaper to produce, more disease-resistant and stronger in flavor and caffeine content than the Arabica variety favored by most Western coffee drinkers.

Such a huge share of the world’s coffee production means that positive changes made in Vietnam resonate globally—making the Rainforest Alliance’s work here tremendously significant. Over a meal of curried chicken and fried rice with fish sauce, I got the chance to speak with Vinh about the Rainforest Alliance’s efforts to transform Vietnam’s coffee industry. “The national government wants 20 percent of Robusta coffee production to be certified as sustainable by 2016,” she said. “There are already five companies in Vietnam that own Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM coffee farms, and we expect that number to grow.”

Pham Tuong Vinh is the Vietnam country coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable landscapes team.

One of the Rainforest Alliance’s most important collaborations in Vietnam is with NESCAFÉ, Nestlé’s line of instant coffee and one of the largest coffee brands in the world. For more than a decade, NESCAFÉ and the Rainforest Alliance have worked together on coffee farms to define advanced farm management practices and improve the livelihoods of farmers. The Rainforest Alliance’s experienced agricultural specialists are working alongside Nestlé’s agronomists, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and 4C (Common Code for the Coffee Community) to combine traditional farmer wisdom with modern science to give farmers new tools and techniques so that they can succeed in their quest for sustainability.

In addition to working with coffee growers, the Rainforest Alliance is also promoting sustainable practices on tea farms that cover more than 328,000 acres (133,000 hectares) of land in Vietnam. In 2011, Vinh oversaw the training of 40 smallholders from tea estates in the north as well as the first certification of a Vietnamese tea company, Phu Ben. Our agriculture team aims to have 30,000 metric tons of tea grown on certified farms by 2015.

[From left to right] Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator, with a Vietnamese farmer.

The Rainforest Alliance has also adapted the SAN Standard to encompass the production of spices, including pepper. Vietnam, along with India, Indonesia and Madagascar, has been chosen as a location to implement the first phase of this project. The standard addresses a number of widespread problems in the pepper farming industry, including soil and water conservation, protection of workers, responsible waste management and the prohibition of dangerous pesticides and genetically modified organisms. In March 2012, the Rainforest Alliance completed an adaptation of these guidelines for pepper farming in Vietnam.

While we are making progress, transforming the agricultural sector in Vietnam is not without its challenges. According to Vinh, it has been difficult to change attitudes toward agrochemical use. “Farmers traditionally use a lot of chemicals in their fertilizer and for pest and weed control,” she said. “They even use paraquat, which is known to cause serious neurological damage.”

A coffee farmer stands among her cherries.

As most of Vietnam’s coffee is produced on small family farms between two and three acres (one and two hectares) in size, much of the field work is done by family members. Consequently, issues involving worker health hit, quite literally, close to home. As part of the Rainforest Alliance training program,  Vinh educates farmers about the dangers of certain chemicals and trains them to use safer techniques, such as applying a combination of less harmful agrochemicals and organic compost as fertilizer, employing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques instead of resorting to heavy pesticide use, and partially or fully replacing herbicides with hand and machine weeding. (The Sustainable Agriculture Network standards allow for some limited, rigorously controlled agrochemicals and strictly prohibit all chemicals listed on the Dirty Dozen list of the Pesticide Action Network North America as well as those banned by the USDA and the European Food and Drug Administration.) Farmers must keep a log of all purchases and applications of permitted chemicals, and the Rainforest Alliance provides ongoing training and assistance to help farmers continue to reduce their use of agrochemicals.

Vinh recalled a conversation with one particular tea farmer, about a year after she had been trained by the Rainforest Alliance. “She told me that she’s so happy with how clean her farm is now that they are properly dealing with waste,” said Vinh. “She said people have taken notice of how beautiful her farm looks with all of the shade trees and lack of waste. She’s also happy that her family’s health is being protected, as they’ve stopped using SAN-prohibited pesticides and learned how to use personal protective equipment while using chemicals.”

Although the Rainforest Alliance has only been working in Vietnam for a few years, nearly 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of its farmland have already been certified. “We are very young in Vietnam,” Pham said, “But I think step by step, we are contributing to changing the landscape of the agricultural sector.”

Why Have We Been “Following the Frog” for 25 Years?

We have so much to celebrate during our second annual Follow the Frog Week! Twenty-five years after we first began working to conserve soil, water and wildlife, empower workers and their communities, and encourage consumers to shop sustainably, we’re seeing the results of our efforts in very real, rewarding ways. Today’s blog — which has been excerpted from our new report Protecting Our Planet: Redesigning Land-Use and Business Practices* – comes from Rainforest Alliance president Tensie Whelan and Rainforest Alliance founder and board chair Daniel Katz.

Imagine a blisteringly hot summer day, the sun beating down as you walk across a scorched open field — nowhere to hide from the merciless rays. Now picture that same field with a large, old tree at its center, its broad trunk firmly rooted in the Earth, the branches rising up and out to form a canopy big enough to shelter you and three others in its cool shade. Increase the number of trees exponentially until you have a lush, green landscape before you, and compare that scene to a tract of forest that’s been slashed and burned to the ground. Which vision is more appealing? Which landscape would better protect all of the living things that inhabit and cross it?

Forests are the consummate multitaskers, harboring 90 percent of Earth’s species, keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, preventing soil erosion and protecting water supplies. They also play a sheltering role in the day-to-day lives of millions of people around the world, providing them with a source of shade, livelihood, food, medicine, fuel and other resources. And they serve as a touchstone for indigenous communities that have called them home for centuries.

When we founded the Rainforest Alliance in 1987, Amazonian forests were disappearing at a rate of 14,305 acres (5,789 hectares) per day. While many other environmental organizations took a combative approach and organized protests and boycotts, we figured that the most effective way to halt the rampant deforestation was to give forestry, farm and tourism enterprises the economic incentive to manage their lands sustainably. Because it provides both businesses and consumers the ability to “vote with their dollars,” certification has become one our most effective conservation tools.

Through this approach, we pioneered changes that have helped slow the rate of Amazon rainforest destruction to 4,344 acres (1,758 hectares) per day — still a daunting number, to be sure, yet a third of what it once was. The Rainforest Alliance has integrated environmental and social sustainability into production and sourcing practices across entire supply chains — from individual farmers, loggers and traders to government agencies and multinational corporations. In the past quarter century, we have transformed the way that forests are managed and crops are grown, making sustainability the “new normal” around the world. And we’ve built a powerful, adaptable model that is capable of driving sustainability in virtually any sector.

Agriculture is one of the key drivers of deforestation. Because the pressure to clear forests is growing alongside the food demands of surging populations, the Rainforest Alliance has placed special emphasis on sustainable agriculture. Today, more than half a million2 Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are protecting forests while increasing yields and improving conditions for farmers and their workers. Rainforest Alliance training and certification have helped make coffee more than just one of the world’s largest commodities; the crop is now part of a culture that celebrates quality, sustainability and justice for workers. The same is true in other agricultural sectors: 15 percent of the global banana trade, 9.4 percent of the world’s tea and 3.3 percent of the global coffee trade originate on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

Millions of people around the world also depend on forests for their livelihoods, and cultivating healthy working forests is a vital part of our mission. The Rainforest Alliance along with other leading environmental organizations and forestry businesses co-founded the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and has certified more than 177 million acres (72 million hectares) of sustainably managed forests, along with thousands of forest product manufacturing companies, to the rigorous FSC standard.

In tourism, the world’s largest industry, we helped create The Global Sustainable Tourism Council, a global accreditation body for sustainability certification. We collaborate with governments and entrepreneurs to encourage the conservation of the biodiverse destinations on which these tourism businesses depend. By engaging a new generation of leaders, we are transforming the business world at all levels. We work with hundreds of major companies, from Staples to Unilever to Marks and Spencer, to help them implement new sourcing and sustainability procedures, thereby driving ever-increasing numbers of sustainable products to market.

Sustainability has become much more than just a “best practice” — it is now a business-critical value. In consumer countries around the world, Rainforest Alliance Certified products are available at mainstream prices, and the demand for them has grown steadily — even during the recent and prolonged economic downturn. The numbers bear out what we’ve known all along: Given reasonable availability and comparable pricing, consumers give preference to sustainable goods and services. The growth of a globalized economy has been accompanied by the emergence of a new generation of consumers who share our commitment to sustainability. They want to connect with the origins of their purchases, share information and create communities via social media. They are choosing to live as engaged global citizens rather than passive end-users.

[Our report Protecting Our Planet: Redesigning Land-Use and Business Practices] highlights research that has tracked and assessed the wide-ranging impacts of our work — on ecosystems, biodiversity, livelihoods, businesses, consumers and children. A quarter century ago, the Rainforest Alliance envisioned a world where human beings could earn a better living while restoring degraded land and conserving threatened ecosystems and wildlife. Today, the impact data we have gathered demonstrates that what’s good for the planet turns out to be good for people — and vice versa. The evidence is in: Our model points the way to the economy of the next several decades, and a more sustainable future for all.

To review the full report visit our website on the report’s online release date, Wednesday, September 19.

How Can Sustainable Farming Help Combat Global Climate Change?

The Rainforest Alliance’s climate team weighs in on the importance of sustainable agriculture as a tool in the fight against global climate change.

Periodically, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — a secretariat that supports all institutions involved in international climate change negotiations — solicits the perspectives of governments and civil society on key issues under negotiation. In 2012, the UNFCC made sustainable agriculture a focus of their policy-making decisions.

In a submission to the UNFCC, the Rainforest Alliance outlined the many benefits of sustainable agriculture. Here is a summary of our submission:

Sustainable agriculture is no silver bullet…but it might be the next best thing.

Much of the debate around agriculture and climate change concerns trade-offs: making choices between mitigation (reducing climate change) or adaptation (adapting to its impacts); increasing farm productivity or promoting long term food security through sustainable land management; and developing land or conserving it.

Although these trade-offs certainly exist, we believe that promoting sustainable agriculture — as embodied by Rainforest Alliance certification under the SAN Standard –- helps to strike a balance by improving food security, increasing productivity and yields, conserving ecosystems, and augmenting farmer incomes.  

Sustainable agriculture can also improve farmers’ resiliency to climate change and communities’ capacity to adapt to climate change while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from farming and enhancing carbon stocks in soil and biomass.

Though it offers great promise for adaptation, mitigation and food security, its wide-scale adoption is not without challenges and significant barriers to adoption. Farmers often lack access to sufficient financing sources, education and training, technical assistance, and fertilizers, seedlings and machinery.

How can we overcome barriers to the adoption of large scale sustainable agriculture?

In light of these constraints, the Rainforest Alliance advocates for advancing agriculture and climate change policies that:

• Promote communication and collaboration amongst public and private financing entities
• Enable flexibility in the design of programs to ensure that they are tailored for local contexts and cultural norms, and reflective of locally appropriate best practices
• Draw upon the collective experience of voluntary agricultural certification standards and systems, agricultural commodities roundtables, and national governmental programs that have made great progress in terms of sustainable agriculture implementation, and
• Foster coordination and collaboration among policy, institutional and financial sectors to create an environment that enables the widespread adoption of sustainable agriculture.

At the international level — through the UNFCCC and projects in Ghana, Mexico and South America — the Rainforest Alliance is working to build the case for sustainable agriculture as a proven, scalable system for supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation.

To read more about the types of policies that should be promoted to address the challenges and benefits of implementing sustainable agriculture, check out the full-text of our submission to the UNFCCC.

A Coffee Farmer (and Mother) Shares Her Perspective on Rainforest Alliance Certification

Recently, we asked Leticia Monzon — owner of a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm in Northern Guatemala — what certification meant to her. We were inspired by her words…

A Tea Farmer’s Perspective

Sikobihora Marie Francoise, a tea farmer and member of the Kobacyamu cooperative, is one of 10,000 smallholder tea farmers in Rwanda who has learned to produce a greener cup of tea with the help of the Rainforest Alliance. Meet Sikobihora and discover what she’s learned from Rainforest Alliance certification in an inspiring new video…

Ready to learn more about our work in tea? Click here.

This video was produced by Betty’s and Taylor’s of Harrogate with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), through the Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH).

Community Forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico

Rainforest Alliance communications specialist Eugenio Fernandez Vasquez discusses our work to ensure that community forestry businesses are harvesting and processing wood sustainably, sharing benefits equitably and developing smart, responsible business plans.

You Say You Want an Evolution

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.” More than two centuries have passed since the French writer Voltaire first coined this phrase, but the proverb is as true today as it was then.

We are proud of the accomplishments of the Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM program, which is jointly managed by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), an international coalition of conservation groups. The certification program has positively impacted millions of farmers and their families, protected countless wildlife species and spared thousands of acres of tropical forests from the machete and the torch. But despite the program’s considerable achievements, we also understand that the SAN standard upon which it is based is not perfect.

SalvaNATURA, a member of the SAN, audits a coffee farm seeking Rainforest Alliance certification.

Time and experience are great teachers, and since the program’s launch in 1992, some of the science, research and cultural norms associated with it have changed—as the SAN fully expected they might. For this reason, the standard was never intended to be a static thing. Built into its very foundation is the ability and obligation to improve on what has gone before.

Back in its earliest days, the SAN established various committees to periodically re-examine the standard and the way it is applied and monitored. Comprised of a cross-section of network staff, consultants and internationally respected experts in their fields, these committees meet on a regular basis to debate even the most minute details and determine the best ways to address any unresolved issues or new needs.

Take, for example, the concept of minimum wage. Under the fifth of the SAN’s ten guiding principles (“Fair Treatment and Good Working Conditions for Workers”), the standard requires that “farms pay salaries and benefits equal or more than the legal minimum, and the workweek and working hours must not exceed the legal maximums or those established by the ILO [the UN’s International Labor Organization]”.

A worker on a Rainforest Alliance Certified tea farm in India.

At first glance, this requirement might seem straightforward, but it is actually quite complex. How do you apply this criterion to jobs that pay for piecework instead of using an hourly or day rate? By their very nature, farms are places where work is seasonal; how do you evaluate salaries over time, when there might be dramatic ebbs and flows in income? What about vacation pay and overtime?

Perhaps the biggest issue of all regarding minimum wage is the most basic: its very definition. Wage standards can vary widely from country to country. “In Africa, for example,” says Kathrin Resak, a Rainforest Alliance technical coordinator, “a number of countries have no minimum wage or poorly formulated ones, meaning that they’re completely outdated or set extremely low.” This sentiment is echoed by Winnie Mwaniki, a Rainforest Alliance regional projects manager for East Africa. “In places like Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda,” says Mwaniki, “the wages can be below one US dollar per day,” lower even than the World Bank’s 2005 extreme poverty line of $1.25 per day, per person.

In cases where there are region-specific issues, the SAN tries to address them through its local interpretation guidelines while still maintaining the primacy of the overall SAN standard. If, for example, there is no set minimum wage in a particular region, the local guidelines must define the term in cooperation with all stakeholders.

When a problem cannot be resolved through local guidelines, the SAN considers changes to the overall standard. But before any modifications can be made, the proposal must first be discussed, researched, field-tested and put through a process of public consultation.

A bunch of bananas from a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm owned by Chiquita.

“Although no standard-setting and auditing agency can claim infallibility in either role, the SAN is proud of its record thus far and has scheduled significant and continuing upgrades in both roles,” says Dorianne Beyer, a member of the SAN’s International Standards Committee and a lawyer with 30 years of experience in the field of labor rights. Though Beyer was specifically referring to the issue of workers’ rights, her statement can be applied across the board.

Some may see any revisions to the SAN standard as an indication of failure, but in actuality, they are proof of its strength. An effective certification program must be willing to adapt and grow according to changing needs and conditions if it is to remain viable. Rainforest Alliance certification may not be perfect, but that doesn’t mean the SAN won’t keep trying to make it so. And in the interim, the program is already doing a world of good.

Read about the SAN Standard and find out what makes the Rainforest Alliance Certified program unique.