Powering Up Smallholder Farmers to Make Food Fair: A Five Point Agenda
Report for the Fairtrade Foundation (February 2013)
This report highlights the pivotal role played by small farmers in world agriculture and outlines some of the investments that governments and donors need to make to support them. Small farmers produce many of the commodities consumed by the UK public and grow most of the food eaten in developing countries. But they face huge challenges. Most importantly, they lack power and influence over government policies and international supply chains. The report focuses on food production and on five of the principal agricultural commodities: coffee, cocoa, tea, sugar and bananas. It estimates how much of the retail price for these commodities returns to the small-scale growers, and shows the extent of corporate control of these supply chains.