Importers add ‘ethically produced’ to fruit requirements

South Africa’s grim legacy of racial separation is thought to be the primary reason for overseas supermarkets demanding “ethically produced fruit” from South African farmers. Stuart Symington, CEO of the Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum (FPEF), believes this country’s suppliers are being unfairly red-flagged by their major retail customers in this regard. “While every effort must be made to address any wrongs of the past, it should not mean that South Africans have a tougher mandate to fulfil than that demanded of their southern hemisphere competitors.” He says the discerning British consumer is now insisting that the likes of Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons make ethically produced products available on their supermarket shelves and that the High Street source such products by whatever means it takes. Ethical trade has traditionally covered labour concerns on farms, including illegal evictions, race and gender discrimination, improper housing, minimum wages (and living wages), representation at worker level and environmental issues like the carbon footprint of exported fruit. “I suspect that the focus on South Africa is actually to provide an ethical trade blue-print for all southern hemisphere supplying countries to the UK market in particular,” maintains Symington. “If we can step up to the plate and bat on this one – and I believe we are doing just that under the leadership of our recently appointed ethical trade champion, Colleen Chennells – then it will be a huge win for our industry.” The question of ethical trade across the entire fruit export chain has been brought into question recently, industry experts believing the spotlight is being unfairly concentrated on shoddy labour practices on farms. “But what about the dodgy practices of many supermarkets? There are many supermarket buying practices that have been declared by the UK Competition Commission as not in the public’s interest, but who is doing anything about this?” Symington does not stop there, however, further questioning the ethics of the US and European governments subsidising their farmers to the collective tune of US$100 million in 2008. “Politicians buy votes with farm subsidies, yet South African farmers are not subsidised a bean. Where is the fairness in this? How can we be expected to compete in overseas markets against subsidised products?” Symington says in a capitalist market, Darwinism should be the order of the day; it’s about survival of the fittest. “You don’t stay in farming because you are subsidised but because you have a marketable product owing to innovative farming practices and excellent business skills.” The insistence of major retail chains on regular audits of their supplying farms has one unfortunate consequence – it comes at a cost to the farmer every time his customer insists on an audit, on top of the inconvenience of the process. What is more, different supermarkets have different requirements so there are no harmonised standards among many of their auditing criteria. “In reality, a single South African producer will find it difficult to supply more than two UK supermarket chains at a time, perhaps three at the outset, so the worst case scenario is the producers have to accommodate three different standards with three different audit invoices.” “Keeping our eye on continuous improvement for the right reasons is where we should stay focused in ethical trade matters,” says Symington. Improving the lives of workers on farms is morally the correct thing to do. This will lead to sustainable farming business and will set an impressive standard and achieve preferred supplier status. “What more could we want than that?”