Prepare yourself.
As World Environment Day approaches, we’ll once again hear a cacophony of sustainability buzzwords from the food and beverage industry. Their coffee is regenerative. Their cocoa is responsibly sourced. Their packaging is circular and recyclable. Their supply chain is carbon neutral, protects the environment, and employs nature-based solutions. Green, eco-friendly, natural, resilient—the list goes on and on.
Buzzwords make great headlines, but they distract from a truth that food and beverage giants refuse to confront. Our climate is in crisis and our global food system is increasingly unpredictable. We are racing toward climate and agricultural catastrophe because the people who grow our food cannot afford to adapt to a crisis they did not create.
Sustainability trends and associated jargon come and go, but global agriculture remains on the knife-edge. Coffee regions are losing up to half their suitable growing area by 2050. Cocoa farmers, most of whom already live below the poverty line, are watching rising temperatures and erratic rainfall threaten their main source of income. The industry has known these statistics for years. Yet very few companies are willing to try the solution smallholder farmers have consistently proposed: fair pricing.
In most cases, financial stability is a prerequisite for environmental protection. Farmers focused on day-to-day survival must often take actions that produce results quickly and cheaply, often stripping nutrients from soil or damaging the broader ecosystem, rather than prioritizing the long-term health of their land.
Research backs this up. A 2020 review in Nature Sustainability analyzed nearly 18,000 papers on sustainable agriculture incentives. It found that financial incentives and income-support mechanisms were among the strongest drivers of the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices worldwide.
The bottom line is you cannot have healthy soil without healthy farms, and you cannot have healthy farms without investing in the people who run them.
It’s clear that demanding that farmers adopt whatever approach is trending this month is not enough to fix our global system. But if we start by addressing the root issues of power and pricing, farmers can become less risk-averse, more willing to invest in practices that require upfront costs or delayed payoffs, and be better able to access capital, equipment, training, and other critical farming inputs. Once established, sustainable practices can spur a reinforcing cycle of improved long-term profitability and environmental resilience.
Fairtrade’s model requires companies to pay at least the Fairtrade Minimum Price, which serves as a buffer for farmers when market prices dip to unsustainable lows. It also includes mandatory premiums, which are an extra sum on top of the selling price that farmer cooperatives democratically decide to use as they see fit.
Fairtrade Premium funds have paid for the disbursement of new plants following disease outbreaks and natural disasters, the construction of boreholes and irrigation systems, and investments in intercropping and shade trees. Farmers themselves have identified these things as essential for long‑term resilience. These aren’t top‑down mandates; they’re collaborative strategies that strengthen both ecosystems and incomes.
To support farmers’ transitions to better practices, local staff across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean facilitate technical training and programs. For example, Fairtrade’s Ghana Agroforestry for Impact (GAIM) partnership with the French Development Agency funds agroforestry training for cocoa farmers in Ghana. More than 1,000 cocoa farmers have learned environmentally friendly ways to improve their land, yields, and livelihoods.
In Indonesia, another program supports about 100,000 cocoa, spice, coconut, and coffee farmers’ transition to sustainable practices, provides opportunities to win community sustainability grants and increases market access through producer-buyer networking.
In Fiji, farmers worked with the Sugar Research Institute of Fiji and the Fiji Sugar Corporation on a pilot of agricultural lime application, trading fertilizer for a more soil-friendly option. Lime was applied to 20 plots and farmers reported higher germination rates, easier field preparation, healthier crop growth, and substantial yield increases. These professional development opportunities are made possible by farmers who voice their needs and national governments, corporate partners, and in-country implementing partners that recognize and trust their expertise.
It’s time for the food and beverage industry to back up the buzzwords with actions that create conditions where farmers—and their land—can thrive. Practically, that means paying farmers more so that they can cover the cost of their basic needs and can invest in their farms, adopt new practices, and diversify their crops. When farmers can better withstand market volatility and climate vulnerability, food and beverage supply chains will face less risk.
Fairtrade is not a silver bullet, but the farmers we work with have been clear about what they need for more than 30 years: stable prices, stronger bargaining power, and a seat at the table. They are not asking for charity. They are asking for fairness. With these fundamentals in place, they can adapt with dignity, not desperation.
Changing the status quo requires a multi‑sector approach: governments that enact and enforce strong protections, companies that commit to fair pricing and long‑term contracts, consumers who choose products that uphold human dignity, and civil society organizations that hold all of us accountable.
On this World Environment Day, the food and beverage industry has a choice. It can continue investing in flashy trends that ignore the people who grow our food, with fleeting impact. Or it can confront the uncomfortable truth that real environmental resilience starts with shifting money and power toward farmers. If companies truly want to save the planet, they must start by paying the people who protect it.
Amanda Archila serves as Executive Director of Fairtrade America, where she leads the organization in increasing market access for Fairtrade farmers and workers by cultivating impact-driven relationships with businesses and expanding consumer demand for Fairtrade goods. Archila’s roots in the fair trade movement began as a young activist and through the launch of a domestic fair trade certification in India with cotton farmers. She has more than 15 years of experience working in a range of industries, from natural foods to ecommerce retail and consumer electronics.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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