On October 6 and 7, 2022, Verité, in partnership with the Anker Research Institute and with support from, RGC Coffee, organized two online sessions to present the results and recommendations of the “Living Income and Living Wage Report” for rural areas and small towns of coffee-growing regions in central Colombia.
Labor is the single largest component of most coffee farmers’ costs of production. In Latin America, for example, labor accounts for the majority of production costs.
As part of Verité’s ongoing work to improve labor practices in the Latin American coffee sector under the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Cooperation on Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project, this year we are launching pilot projects in three key coffee producing countries — Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.
Typically at the end of a year, we at Verité ask ourselves two questions: 1) What did we do to further our vision of a world where people work under safe, fair, and legal conditions?, and 2) How did we fulfil our mission to provide the knowledge and tools to eliminate the most serious labor and human rights abuses in global supply chains?
This year, we answer these questions considering both how we have met the issues the pandemic presents and how we have fulfilled our mission despite the pandemic. Please join us in a review of selected notable projects from 2020.
In many countries, including major producing nations such as Brazil and Colombia, workers in the coffee sector have been defined as essential workers who must continue to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent weeks, Verité has been engaging stakeholders in The Cooperation On Fair, Free Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project to learn about the impacts COVID-19 is having on coffee farmers and farmworkers and to explore potential actions that could mitigate the effects of the pandemic on them.