Fairtrade International has launched a digital tool to help businesses find the right prices to enable farmers to make a sustainable income from their produce.
Through an interactive map, users can look up living income reference prices by product or country, and download a report showing how each price is calculated.
For example, by clicking on Tanzania, users can see that the living income reference price for cashews is 2,133 Tanzanian shilling (60p) per kg of raw nuts. This is based on the estimated combined costs of decent living and sustainable production of cashews in Tanzania, in conjunction with estimates for sustainable yield of 25kg cashews per tree, across a viable crop area of 197 trees.
The living income reference price, as calculated by Fairtrade International, is the price required by an average farmer to earn a living income from the sale of their crop in a given country. Living income refers to the level of income needed to afford a decent standard of living for a farmers’ household, including food, housing, education, healthcare and provision for unexpected events.
Fairtrade has so far calculated over a dozen country- or region-specific prices in partnership with farmers and local industry experts, for products including cocoa, coffee, coconuts, cashews, oranges and mangoes.
The living income reference price differs from Fairtrade minimum prices, which are mandatory for Fairtrade-certified suppliers, and serve as a safety net to protect farmers against extreme price drops.
One of Fairtrade’s 2021-2025 Global Strategy four strategic priorities is digitisation for fairer supply chains.
The new map is one of several digital tools launched by Fairtrade International to assist stakeholders, including the Fairtrade Impact Map, launched this year, and the Fairtrade Risk Map launched last year. The impact map displays information on Fairtrade’s work across the globe, including projects and studies, and the risk map is designed to help businesses and farmer organisations assess their human rights and environmental risks.
Last year, Fairtrade launched its Banana Dashboard, a source of information for co-ops, traders and retailers on Fairtrade bananas and their producers. Fairtrade says it is planning to develop similar dashboards for more products.
