Author: Amina Wagner With growing concerns around food safety, ethical sourcing and environmental impact, consumers worldwide are becoming increasingly invested in understanding the products they buy. As our collective awareness is raised, we are prompted to take a closer look at the ingredients we use in our food, how they are grown and harvested, and by whom. Companies, in turn, are under pressure to make their production and supply chains transparent, which often lays bare cases of human, animal and environmental exploitation. In an effort to keep consumers happy and be part of much-needed social and environmental change, many companies are embracing the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), taking accountability for the impact of their business on the environment, society, employees and animal welfare while striving for economic success.

One of the most prominent issues in ethical food production is child labour. According to the International Labour Office, Africa has the greatest incidence of economically active children: 41% of children on the continent are at work. Especially in the small-scale farming sector, children are often expected to miss school and instead contribute to the family's income.

ETG-Beyond Beans 

The Export Trading Group (ETG) is an international company founded in Kenya in 1967 to market locally produced and manufactured goods in East and Central Africa. Within two decades, ETG established itself as an agricultural participant and a major supplier in food aid operations, creating trading routes across East Africa and becoming a prominent supplier of food aid to various NGOs as well as the UN Food Programme. Now in 2022, ETG has become one of the world’s leading traders and processors of agricultural commodities; its African footprint encompasses the Sub-Saharan region, with processing and storage infrastructure across the continent and international specialist operations in Central Asia, India, Asia Pacific and Europe. 

ETG is a global player across multiple industries including cashew and cocoa, which are known to heavily involve child labour practices. Since its establishment, the upliftment of farming communities has been one of the company’s core commitments, believing that commercial business and social and environmental impact in supply chains go hand in hand. In 2013, it established the Empowering Farmers Foundation (EFF) “to bring about long term, climate-resilient, socio-economic development of rural communities and stimulate the growth of a middle economy in Sub-Saharan Africa”, their site reads. In 2020, ETG integrated with Cocoanect B.V., a cocoa trading company with a focus on sustainability, and created the Beyond Beans Foundation.

Beyond Beans is not an NGO; it is an independent branch within ETG that develops, organises and implements projects across its commodity supply chains in collaboration with other companies, NGOs and government agencies. Its headquarters is at ETG’s Regional Trade Office in The Netherlands, and its core programmes are implemented through subsidiary foundations in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Togo and Ecuador. The Foundation’s work tackles child labour, promotes climate-smart agroforestry and fosters gender equity.

Problematising child labour 

ETG faces huge challenges in the attempt to create sustainable supply chains. Working as a continuation of Cocoanect B.V., Beyond Beans initially focused on the cocoa industry. Cocoa farmers in West Africa do not earn what is considered a living income. Beyond Beans’ goal is to double or even triple their income. Child labour is often a result of unstable family income, which either leaves parents dependent on their childrens’ active help or unable to provide necessary provisions, such as tuition, school uniforms, or lunch meals.

Talking to AMAKA, Anne van der Veen, Global Programmes Manager at Beyond Beans, explains that cocoa prices are determined by the market, and so poverty cannot be fixed simply by increasing the price of the commodity. Instead, the Foundation chooses to work through a mix of service interventions and cash premiums to help farmer communities. They collaborate with African partners on the ground to trigger change through enterprise by innovating existing initiatives and developing new methodologies to tackle poverty, which they identify as the main root cause of child labour. Poverty, according to Andre van den Beld, Head of Sustainability at ETG, is caused by a lack of enabling parameters such as investment, knowledge, or climate conditions. While there are incentives such as cash premiums, Beyond Beans also works to create infrastructures that help communities become self-sufficient, for example, through income diversification and reforestation initiatives. Working with farmers in their direct supply chains, the Foundation is able to foster long-term connections and move away from traditional, often time-bound, remediation approaches that leave farmer communities dependent on external organisations.

VSLA-CHILD

Traditional remediation of child labour focuses on addressing immediate symptoms and oftentimes results in further harm to farmer communities. “The concept of child labour (as it is most commonly discussed) is western“, explains Anna van Roekel, Community Development Project Manager at Beyond Beans in Ghana. “In reality, it is more nuanced than how western media portrays it. as it is culturally accepted that children contribute to the family through work, and economically it is necessary for many families”, she concludes. Some companies that supply European and North American markets do not want to risk being associated with child labour, and therefore are inclined to remove farmers from their supply chains when cases of child labour arise. “That doesn’t create change, it creates hidden child labour that still takes place”, says van Roekel. It is not realistic to eradicate child labour from one day to the next. Rather, ETG-Beyond Beans aims to impact childrens’ lives, through addressing poverty in the communities where they work, as well as the social norms around child protection and the need for labour. This is at the core of their VSLA-CHILD initiative, which van Roekel has been working on since its inception in 2019. Aiming to allow children the opportunity to be children without harming parents' ability to sustain their family, VSLA-CHILD works to tackle the roots of child labour by increasing the financial capacity of smallholder farmers.

Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) are formed amongst 15 to 40 community members who meet on a weekly basis to collectively save funds and take out loans at low interest rates from their collective savings. These loans help members pay for medical bills, school tuition, or business investments. VSLAs already existed in West African communities; Beyond Beans worked with the Ghanaian farmer cooperative Kokoo Pa and LBC Cocoa Merchants Limited, as well as with Participatory Development Associates (PDA), and Child Rights International (CRI) to innovate the VSLA approach and incorporate training modules on gender equity and child rights. In doing so, ETG developed the CHILD methodology: Child-Household Intervention for Learning and Development, building on a previous methodology known as Gender Action Learning System (GALS). This methodology, designed to create an infrastructure that sustains itself without further intervention, provides 18 months of training and guidance on a weekly basis. Many smallholder farmers cannot read and write and therefore often feel unable to participate in formal training. In response, the VSLA-CHILD workshops use symbol language that the groups themselves create, taking a discussion-based, participatory approach around gender roles in the house, the importance of child education, and business investment. “ Our trainers do not come in with a set definition on child labour to impart; rather it is a discussion about the best possible future for the child”, van Roekel explains.

Through such a grassroots approach, ETG-Beyond beans are not just ensuring that interventions like VSLA-CHILD tackle the root causes of child labour, such as structural poverty and gender inequality, but that the schemes themselves are sustainable. After the 18 months of training, VSLA-CHILD groups can carry on indefinitely, led by community members themselves. ETG Field Supervisors continue to check in with groups and provide support where needed, but community members are at the forefront.

Based on Beyond Beans’ Notes from the Field report, published ten months into the project, they had “started up 95 VSLA-CHILD groups with 2,390 members [by March 2021], who have successfully saved an estimated combined total of 145,530 EUR in the past 10 months, with most members trained in gender equality and sensitized on child labour and how to combat it within their own households and communities.” ETG estimates that this has affected roughly 8,300 children. Today, 217 VSLA groups have been set up by ETG-Beyond Beans, with a total of 4,837 members.

Putting women in the driver seat 

More than 60% of all employed women in Africa, south of the Sahara, work in agriculture. Due to traditional gender roles and women’s lack of land rights, the entry point to a farming community through a supply chain is usually through male farmers. “We need to change the narrative from farmer to farming households”, says van der Veen. “At least half of the work is done by women, but whoever owns the land often gets the revenue.” VSLA-CHILD aims to change unequal gender dynamics through Gender Action Learning Systems that problematise gender inequality. Fairer division of labour and income allows women to share the household revenue and participate in financial decision making; often, women choose to spend their extra money on education for their children. “

The market has changed from storytelling to story proving”, says van den Beld. When asked if business interests clash with developmental initiatives, he explains: “The clash is about what is tangible. If you really want to make a change, it has to be through long-term mechanisms and processes. Consumers often go for short term solutions. Translating their expectations into a feasible intervention is when conflict arises.” Ultimately, businesses prioritise the demands of their consumers, which gives us all a chance to push for ethical, transparent production and supply chains. 

After speaking to smallholder farmers based in Ghana, Cameroon and Ivory Coast about their experiences as VSLA members, it seems evident that ETG-Beyond Beans’ work in West Africa is driving positive change by helping women assert their place in agricultural business and giving children a chance to receive the education they deserve. 

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