Fairtrade Stakeholders Meeting on Living Income- South East Asia
Opening of the stakeholders meeting by Armiyadi Mansur- NAPP Board Member
Majority of the worlds small scale coffee farmers are in Asia, Africa and Latin America who are struggling to keep up their daily livelihood due to being forced to sell their crop below the cost of production. If smallholder farmers dedicated to producing valuable crops like coffee cannot afford a decent standard of living from their earnings, global food supply chains will never be sustainable, rural communities won’t prosper and the natural environment will suffer the consequences.
Presentation on Living Income Strategy by Carla- Senior Advisor; Fairtrade International
Therefore, as a part of its global initiative on Living income for coffee farmers- Fairtrade will be conducting a Living Income Study in two major coffee producing areas of Indonesia – Central Aceh and Bener Meriah districts. The study will cover major areas on sustainable pricing, market development, improving yields, and farm efficiency.
In order to introduce this concept to a broader stakeholder, to identify opportunities to engage and involve them in the study, and thereby contribute to the compilation of an aggregated data a ‘Stakeholders Meeting on Living Income’ was organised by Fairtrade in collaboration with SCOPI on 30th August.
The workshop was attended by about 20 participants (exporters, producer associations, and NGOs working with coffee farmers). All of the participating stakeholder expressed their interest to participate in different ways, including replicating the workshop and study in other parts of Indonesia, once the study tool was finalised by Fairtrade. A follow up discussion was suggested to be arranged by the end of the year. By then, more a concrete decision on plans for further collaboration including shared roles and resources can be agreed upon.
