Fair trade steps for small-scale growers in climate journey

Ensuring a “fair and just” value chain is about ensuring consumers are willing to pay fair prices to ensure producers earn decent livelihoods. It is also about ensuring a fair and sustainable supply chain that protects nature and the environment.

Sadly, addressing climate change isn't fair. Often, it's those with the lowest carbon footprint who are hit hardest. Small-holder farmers are grappling with the loss of arable land, yields, and livelihoods, due to extreme weather and rising temperatures. Droughts, floods, crop diseases, pests, and soil erosion threaten the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.

There are low-cost, everyday “fair trade” practices which small producers can embrace to grow resilience to climate change, and reduce emission of greenhouse gases.

For example, farmers’ groups can sign up for carbon credit plans. They will not only be cutting greenhouse emissions, but will be making additional income from sale of carbon credits.

Adopting farming practices which sequester carbon in soil can help increase yields by up to 15-20 percent, according to the World Bank.

By sequestering more carbon in the soil, these practices in essence also help mitigate climate change.

By certifying products coming from carbon trading programmes, it will help consumers knowingly pay a premium knowing they have taken action for the greenhouse gases they produce.

This is a win-win situation where smallholder farmers earn while contributing to climate action, and on the other hand, corporate bodies to get a chance to mitigate their carbon emissions.

Farmers also need to adopt newer and sustainable agricultural practices that drive income resilience and by providing alternative producer crops.

For example, cocoa farmers can adopt climate-smart approaches and livelihood diversification by embracing agroforestry and intercropping the cash crop with yam, cassava, plantain, and chili peppers.

There are encouraging outcomes from a Fairtrade project in Ghana: farmers have increased their income by almost 26 percent compared to conventional practices with the added benefit of environmental conditions continuously improving the productivity of their plots. The same piece of land is expected to yield more cocoa than would have ever been the case in the past.

In Kenya, another study showed smallholder coffee farmers are installing water tanks, providing a reliable source for domestic and farm needs.

Embracing cleaner cooking fuel can also help farmers adapt to climate change challenges. These farmers can make briquettes from coffee waste, and install biogas units to make use of cow dung that would otherwise go to waste. This will cut need for firewood, charcoal, hence leading to less deforestation.

Projects have also seen farmers diversify from primary cash crops.

Africa remains vulnerable to climate change due to its limited adaptive capacity, and the situation is exacerbated by widespread poverty.

By embracing fair-trade practices, farmers can combat the effects of climate change and achieve sustainable development.