Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Working conditions in plantations

One of the main features of plantation agriculture is cheap labor. Farmers work the lands owned by multinationals  with their hands in really hard conditions (heat, humidity, long working days…) and they receive very little money in exchange. Sometimes workers are slaves. Many people in the richest countries are not aware that they are consuming products made by slaves (or they prefer not to think about this).

Here you have some links where you can learn more about working conditions in the plantations:

COCOA PLANTATIONS AND CHOCOLATE:




PINEAPPLE PLANTATIONS: 



SUGARCANE PLANTATIONS:




And this is a video that shows some former slaves who worked in a cocoa plantation in the Ivory Coast. They were freed by an antislavery organization. The video is short and it´s subtitled and you won´t find difficulties to understand what their experience was like. I strongly recommend you to watch it: 


What can consumers do to stop abuse and help improving the working conditions of the workers of the plantations?

In developed countries consumers can choose among a large variety of products and their choices can put presure on those multinationals that use cheap or slave labor in their plantations. Choosing a specific brand of chocolate or coffee is a personal decision and everyone has to decide if he/she prefers to buy products  produced by slaves or products made by farmers who receive a fair salary. 

National and international organizations have started boycott campaigns to make the multinationals change their policy towards plantation workers. This is a link that suggests some actions people can start to fight against unfair situations in plantations: 


And finally, this is a list of places where you can buy fair trade products, that is, products cultivated or made by workers who have been fairly payed and whose rights have been respected. Many of these products are also organic (produced ecologically, respecting the natural cicle and without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides): 


2 comments:

laura meco said...

Hi Paqui!
This video is really hard, I haven't words to say how I feel after watching this, this is unfair. People who do this and who make other people slaves are the worst, really, I would have prefered don't watch this video but we need to know this, because we complaint many times and we say that we have many problems, and we don't have problems, these people have really serious problems and we must fight for solving it.

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello Laura,

I´ve been thinking in showing this video in the class tomorrow. Many people prefer not to be aware of the others´ problems. The easiest thing is to buy the chocolate or the coffee you like and don´t ask about who has produced it. But our role as teachers is to make you open your eyes (Kelly would say "disturb your nests") and see that this world is not perfect and there are a lot of things to do if you want to change it. As human beings, we can´t ignore the suffering of people who are working so that the people who live in the richest countries buy cheap products and have access to so many things. It´s up to us to decide if we close our eyes and live as if this didn´t exist, but we have to know that these unfair situations still happen and that we can make things change. Even the longest journey begins with one step.

See you tomorrow.