Seven German retailers, Aldi Nord, Aldi Sud, Lidl, dm, REWE, Kaufland, and Tegut set themselves the goal to work towards providing a living income and living wage for farmers and workers in their supply chains. A great commitment, that is highly necessary to create a better future for farmers and workers producing tropical crops like cocoa, coffee, tea and bananas.
With their initiative, the German retailers want to contribute to providing farmers and workers in the countries they source from with a decent standard of living. They want to safeguard human rights, reduce poverty and eliminate possible child and forced labor, the joint commitment says. In the first step, the groups want to concentrate on the agricultural supply chains of their own private labels.
A welcome step
The Rainforest Alliance welcomes this new commitment; improving the livelihoods of farmers and farm workers is a key focus of our work at the Rainforest Alliance. We work with retailers in Germany and globally to reach this goal, through our certification programs and by developing new instruments that make it easier for retailers and other companies to improve the income of farmers and workers’ wages.
The commitment of the German retailers follows in the footsteps of a commitment of Dutch retailers to work towards a living wage for workers in the banana sector. This commitment was made in November at the international conference the Only Way is Up that the Rainforest alliance organized jointly with support of the Dutch and German government to stimulate the private and public sector to address poverty in global agri-food supply chains.
Photo credits: BMZ, Germany
