Coffee Stain
Historically, respect to human rights came late to rural Brazil, where they remain fragile. Several decades passed before rural workers were included in the country’s labour law framework known as CLT (The Consolidation of Labour Laws). Most cases of modern slave labour in Brazil are linked to agriculture. Rural workers’ wages and family farmers’ earnings are low, placing most of them among the poorest income groups. However, these are essential people who did not stop working during the coronavirus pandemic and continued to produce food to be sold at the largest supermarkets in the country and abroad. In recent years, coffee production in Brazil has been addressed in numerous documents including allegations about poor working conditions for rural workers. Informality, poverty and slave labour are recurrent problems. Oxfam Brasil is once again looking into the situation of coffee in the country, with a special focus on Minas Gerais – the main producing state. With the increase in large supermarkets and other large corporations’ economic power and influence in food supply chains, we call on these actors to conduct a deeper analysis of the coffee supply chain in Brazil and establish corporate policies and mechanisms to safeguard the rights of the rural workers involved.
Area of focus: Coffee
Author(s): Gustavo Ferroni
Organisation/institution: Oxfarm Brasil
- Coffee Stain