On March 27, 2023, Verité in partnership with the Anker Research Institute, published the “Living Income and Living Wage Report: Rural Areas and Small Towns of Central Colombia.” The study results provide a living wage and living income benchmark for a pilot project being carried out by Verité in Colombia under the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Cooperation On Fair Free Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project.
During 2022 Verité conducted actionable research and engaged stakeholders as part of the Cooperation On Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) project to create, refine, and launch a set of 17 tools comprising the Socially Sustainable Sourcing Toolkit (S3T) to meet the needs of key coffee sector stakeholders.
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.
We train executives and buyers at companies committed to advancing respect for human rights in their operations and supply chains.