Global Coffee Platform (GCP) has opened co-funding for two GCP Collective Action Initiatives in Vietnam and Brazil.
A Collective Action Initiative – or Member Initiative – has companies and organisations leverage their resources to collectively improve an identified issue for coffee at origin. The results and learnings of the initiative are shared with the coffee sector to scale results.
“GCP’s Collective Action Initiatives address burning issues at origin such as responsible use of agro-chemicals or social well-being. I find it most amazing that competitors come together, join forces and leverage their resources to improve pressing issues,” says Caroline Glowka, Manager Member Relations and Corporate Partnerships at GCP.
Roasters, retailers, producers, traders and non-government organisations are invited to contribute. Co-funders will provide input to addressing a critical issue, while leveraging their financial investment by joining others to achieve greater scale and scope.
“Big battles are fought and won collectively. GCP’s extensive network of global Members and local Country Platforms are clearly at the forefront accomplishing Collective Action Initiatives that deliver significant results and create well-being for coffee farmers and their families around the world,” says Mary Petitt, GCP Ambassador North America.
GCP’s Collective Action Initiative in Brazil, in partnership with InPacto and Cecafé, will work to improve living and working conditions for coffee growers and workers.
“Good living and working conditions should come first when we think about sustainability in coffee,” says Maria Fernanda Brando of the GCP Brazil Team.
With the Collective Action Initiative, we hope to create awareness about this complex issue and trigger change to prevent degrading conditions in the Brazilian coffee-producing chain.”
GCP says Brazil has some of the strictest labour legislation amid all coffee producing countries, but not all growers fully comply with it. Legislation is complex, bureaucratic, and also costly for growers to comply with, especially smallholders.
Although GCP says it’s safe to say that Brazilian coffee growers in general have fair living and working conditions, there are cases of forced labour detected among workers, a few having been identified recently in Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo states.
This initiative will contribute to eliminate unacceptable social practices at farm-level, with a strong focus on:
• Education,
• mapping and monitoring of working conditions in coffee areas,
• studies covering living wage, living income, and cost of production, and
• positive communication of success cases.
In Vietnam, GCP’s Collective Action Initiative is calling for responsible use of agro-inputs for coffee.
This new initiative targets improvement of the sustainable and effective use of agro-chemicals and weed management practices in coffee – particularly glyphosate – to develop suitable alternatives.
Although most coffee farmers across Vietnam apply pesticides and fertilisers, GCP says this is hardly ever done based on adequate knowledge or soil tests.
“Vietnam coffee is much valued around the world. In order to keep it that way we must encourage the sustainable usage and knowledge of agro-inputs and especially address glyphosate usage,” says Trung Pham, GCP Program Manager Vietnam.
“Not every coffee farmer is aware of this yet. However, this Collective Action Initiative will support farmers to produce a better coffee in the future.”
GCP says producers have a limited understanding of diseases and pests. As a response, they often tend to wrongly apply pesticides, leading to additional, unnecessary cost and adding to the problem of excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers.
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