Minh Le is the Associate Country Director of Oxfam in Vietnam.

Rice is life. It is true for me and for millions of farmers and families living in the riparian countries of the Mekong River.

Almost a decade ago, I got to know about the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) via a local organization in Cambodia. I was intrigued by its potential to not only improve rice production, but also to offer solutions to the complex problems and constraints faced by smallholder farmers.

The strengthening SRI movement has become a popular topic recently in development circles and with politicians simply because everyone cares about finding a way of feeding more people and, at the same time, improving environmental sustainability. SRI literature saw a spike of scientific and public interest in the last 10 years. Some 250 scientific articles have been produced in comparison to a few dozen in the previous decade. The March 2013 issue of the journal, Farming Matters, (published by ILEIA, the Centre for learning on sustainable agriculture) is exclusively devoted to SRI. I agree with the editors that SRI is indeed about more than just more rice.

In 2006, Oxfam initiated a regional initiative to support smallholder farmers in the lower Mekong basin, catalysing SRI innovations in rice production. In Vietnam “Simple and Effective” is the motor to promote SRI. Five year later, it was reported that one million farmers (some 10% of the total national farming population) have adopted SRI, following a partial or full set of its principles. It was reported by the Plant Protection Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development that SRI adoption covered 16% of the rice land in the North and 6% of the rice land in the country overall. Though progress is being made, it is obvious that the task is not yet completed.

Vietnamese farmer Hoang Thi Lien, right, talks to Nguyen Van Do, at his SRI farm in Dong Phu commune, My Duc district, Ha Tay province. Lien is a core farmer that gives instruction for and help other farmers to cultivate SRI rice. Photo: Chau Doan/ Oxfam America

There are still millions of farmers in Vietnam and hundreds of millions elsewhere who should have the opportunity to learn about and gain confidence in agro-ecological methods such as SRI. Multi-institutional and multi-level collaborations have been the key to success of SRI scaling up in Vietnam and many attempts have been made to try similar farmer-centered approaches with other crops. I see the SRI movement as opening doors for more cooperation and genuine support for farmers, as research, extension, and practice make progress together.

So let’s move the SRI debate beyond right and wrong and focus our energy and scare resources on better addressing farmers’ risk horizons, their appetite for change, and their aspirations towards improved rice productivity. In Vietnam, finding local solutions to food production is essential to eliminating hunger and providing insurance against rising food prices.

Rice is life and it is at the nexus of urgent global challenges for meeting food needs with less land per person, diminished water availability, rising energy costs, and adverse climate changes.  It is not an over-dramatization that our planet’s future will be influenced to no small degree by how this essential grain is grown in the decades ahead.

As a mother of two, I now know that all my years of schooling did not prepare me nearly as well for working life as being a mother. As all mothers know, mothers are the ultimate project managers and multi-taskers, juggling many tasks at once, carrying out strategies but always being nimble to change course on a dime in the face of a temper tantrum, dirty diaper, or sick child. But for mothers in the developing world there are even bigger and more dire challenges, like where the next meal will come from, how to get medicine for a sick child, or finding potable drinking water. And yet, mothers in the developing world learn to cope with these challenges daily. That’s why so many are now realizing that investing in women is the key to feeding the planet and to economic growth.

According to a recent Gates Foundation report, “When women don’t control resources and income, their households may suffer from malnutrition. Men are less likely than women to reinvest their income in the health of the family.”  In a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, women are deemed to be the key to food security indicating that “if women had equal access to agricultural resources and services, food security would be greatly improved and societies would grow richer, and not only in economic terms.”

But it isn’t just NGO’s and UN bodies claiming a good return on investment when providing resources and opportunities to women, Goldman Sachs, the large investment firm also conducted research with the World Bank and concluded that “investments in women—particularly in education and labor force participation—lead to read GDP growth, as women take their earnings and invest them back in their families and communities.” And just last week the billionaire and investment guru, Warren Buffett also expressed his bullish take on women in an essay published in Fortune magazine where he declares his optimism for America’s future lies with American women, untapped resource!

So to all those mothers and multi-taskers, here is a list of 10 (thought there are undoubtedly more) tasks that women in the developing world take on each day:

1. Child rearing

This mother and child fled their villages and had just arrived at the El Salaam camp in North Darfur. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

2. Cooking

Cooking “arroz chaufa” (stir fried rice) in the communal pot, village of San Jacinto, Peru. Photo: Evan Abramson /Oxfam America

3. Growing commodity crops for sale

Etchi Avla on her cocoa farm in Botende, Ivory Coast. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

4. Selling at the market 

Since she received an Oxfam cash grant, this market vendor in Darfur is able to support her children, brothers and sisters. Photo: Elizabeth Stevens/Oxfam America

5. Fetching water

Jainaba Bojang carries a tub of water home from a bore hole and water pump in the village of Oupat, Gambia. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell:Oxfam America

6. Chopping and gathering firewood

Howa Abdullha comes back to Kebkabiye, North Darfur, carrying firewood she has gathered outside town. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

7. Laundry

Hencia Josena does laundry at work in a Haitian hospital. Photo: Liz Lucas/Oxfam America

8. Maintaining the house

Members of Ratnaweera family stand outside their new house in Sri Lanka.  Photo: Atul Loke/Panos for Oxfam America

9. Growing crops for food

This Cambodian farmer used system of rice intensification (SRI) practices to cultivate rice. Photo: Patrick Brown/ Oxfam America

10. Caring for elders

These three elders at the Internally Displaced Persons Magunga Camp noted that they had family looking after them. Photo: Liz Lucas/ Oxfam America

A sample of beans from numerous sacks of cocoa to make sure they are the appropriate size and volume at the Cooperative Entente de Le Bia in Sankro, Ivory Coast in January. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

There is some good news in the Behind the Brands Scorecard. Some of the highest scores were in the area of workers’ rights.  However, the bad news is that those scores still aren’t in the green zone of “good.” Frankly, there is no real reason why this should be the case.  After all, unlike some of the other themes in the Scorecard, worker’s issues have been with these companies for a very long time.  Recall Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which shown a spotlight on the plight of meatpacking workers in the early 1900’s.  And yet, companies are not doing as well as they should be.

From a methodological standpoint, the indicators for workers’ rights were much easier to develop than some of the other themes in Behind the Brands, since the indicators are based on International Labour Organization Conventions and basic norms of human rights, which have been accepted for quite some time.

While companies with the highest score of 6 (Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Unilever) might be doing better for their own employees, they have not extended many of these standards throughout their supply chain.  That is critical, because labor is often the most valuable asset that small producers and landless people possess.

Agricultural workers are amongst the poorest people in rural areas. Their jobs are often temporary, wages are low, and working conditions can be very hazardous.  More women than men are engaged in waged agricultural jobs, but despite their numbers, they are generally “invisible” to companies, governments, and international institutions. Their organizations can be weak and their access to social security and other benefits is minimal.

With 75% of the world’s poorest living in rural areas, food and beverage companies can have a tremendous impact on raising the standard of living for workers throughout their supply chain. They can do this by ensuring that living wages are paid and precarious work is minimized. Most importantly, by respecting worker representation, collective bargaining, and accessible and confidential grievance mechanisms, food and beverage companies will ensure that everyone contributing to their bottom line has a voice in their livelihoods and thus their future.

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This post on workers’ rights is the last of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read previous posts on land, women, farmers, transparency, water, and climate change!

David Waskow is Oxfam America’s climate change program director.

When I read headlines like this one last week, “Vietnam Coffee Harvest May Drop 30% on Drought,” I’m left with the feeling that the tablecloth is being pulled out from under the dishes on the table.

Dry, cracked earth seen at Dire Dime, Ethiopia. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

And it’s climate change that is doing the pulling.

Food production is already being pummeled globally by increasingly-severe climate events and other climate impacts, with more on the way. Small-scale farmers in developing countries are bearing the brunt of the damage – all too often, the crops they depend on for their lives and livelihoods are directly in harm’s way.

So when Oxfam began work on our new Behind the Brands initiative and a Scorecard assessing the policies of the ten largest food and beverage companies on a range of issues that are vital for small-scale farmers, climate change was right in the mix.

We examined company policies on climate change in two ways, looking at how they’re dealing with both the causes and the consequences of global warming.  First, we wanted to know whether these major companies are working to address climate change risks in their supply chains and if they are working to support the resilience of small-scale farmers in the face of impacts such as water scarcity and storms.  Second, we wanted to know whether the companies are working to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, especially from agricultural sources.   (Much of our scoring is based on company reporting based on the CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) reporting format.)

What we discovered surprised us.  Just because a company did well in one area – building climate resilience or reducing emissions –didn’t mean it did well in the other.  Unilever, which scored 74% on the scorecard elements about emissions, scored only 30% in terms of its policies about climate risks and building the resilience of small-scale farmers.  The company needs to bring its focus on resilience up to its focus on emissions, which itself can still improve.  Unilever’s failure to address  resilience represents the overall dismal state of affairs when it comes to the ten companies’ engagement on climate risks and the impacts that small-scale farmers face. The average company score on this was 25%.

One company, Nestle, did quite well with its policies on climate resilience.  Nestle scored 83% on the resilience elements of the scorecard, largely because the company’s CDP reports and other policies highlight the importance of addressing climate impacts such as water shortages and volatile weather patterns.  Sadly, however, the company didn’t do so well when it comes to emissions.  Nestle has only average policies on emissions, with a score of 44%, and a below-average score at 23% for its policies specifically on agricultural sources of emissions.

But, frankly, what surprised and disappointed us the most was that some companies had weak policies on climate change across the board.  Associated British Foods, General Mills, and Kellogg’s each scored 3%, 9%, and 12%, respectively, on climate resilience.  And the same three companies scored 15%, 0%, and 8%, respectively, when it comes to those companies’ policies on emissions from agricultural sources.  These companies are the real laggards on addressing the causes and consequences of climate change in their supply chains.

They need to realize that the table cloth is being swiftly pulled out from under them and that our food and drinks—and the lives of the poorest around the world—will surely come crashing down as a result.

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This post by David Waskow is part of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read other posts on land, women, farmers, transparency, water, and workers!

Suzanne Zweben is a Senior Advisor in the Private Sector Department of Oxfam America. 

Lake Izabal in Guatemala is an area of great biodiversity and natural resource wealth. Photo: Edgar Orellana / Oxfam America

Companies included in the Behind the Brands scorecard have for the most part made progress on managing water resources.  Largely they recognize that access to water will be one of the greatest challenges of our time.  It’s projected that by 2025, just 12 years away, that 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.  Two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to have limited access to clean water.

This is one sustainability issue food and beverage companies grasp as core to their business; it will impact their ability to make products and touch the lives of their employees, consumers and the communities where they operate and from which they source.  Approximately 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is used for irrigation compared to 22 percent for other industrial use and only 8 percent for domestic use.  In developing countries, 70 percent of industrial wastes are dumped untreated into waters where they pollute the usable water supply, with the food sector estimated as responsible for 54 percent of organic water pollutants.

Oxfam’s Scorecard assessed three main aspects related to water:

(1) Human Right to Water: Has the company recognized the human right to water as defined by the UN?  Has the company committed to consult communities on plans to develop water resources, i.e. before a project has started?  Have grievance mechanisms been established in cases where water rights have been violated?  (A recent report by The Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, On the Right Track, addresses good practices in implementing the human right to water.  See Chapter 3 especially.)

(2) Transparency: Does the company disclose information on water withdrawals, discharges (i.e. the quality of water released into lakes and rivers), water-stressed regions where the company has operations, regions where the company operates that are at risk for water stress, and raw materials that come from regions subject to water-related risk?  (Seven of the ten companies companies assessed through the Behind the Brands scorecard disclose information through the Water Program of the Carbon Disclosure Project.)

(3) Supply Chain Management:  Does the company require its suppliers to report on their water use, risks and management?  Are requirements on water rights and use specified in a company’s supplier code?  Has the company set a specific target to reduce its water use along its whole value chain?

Food and beverage companies have played a central role in the CEO Water Mandate, which was launched by the UN Secretary-General to assist companies in the development, implementation, and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices.  Yet no one company has taken significant steps on both the human right to water and supply chain management.  PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company have developed policies that take into account the effect of their activities on local communities’ access to water.  Nestle and Unilever have supplier codes or guidelines with specific requirements on water management.

Yet there is still a long way to go.  Because some progress has been made, many companies consider themselves leaders in the realm of sustainable water management, even if they are only addressing one or two of the three aspects of this challenge. But I’m waiting to see who the real leader is going to be—this company will leverage their influence across their supply chain to take on all three of the key fundamental issues of the human right to water, transparency, AND supply chain management.

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This post by Suzanne Zweben is part of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read more on land, women, farmers, transparency, workers, and climate change!

Erinch Sahan is a Private Sector Policy Advisor at Oxfam Great Britain.

Badou Allouko on her farmland, where she grows cocoa to sell and vegetables for personal consumption, in Sankro, Ivory Coast in January. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

In a world where demand for agricultural production is growing, but supply is failing to keep up, small-scale producers are critical to our food security. With the right investment and inclusive business approaches, small-scale farmers can be immensely productive and a reliable source of supply.

Small-scale farmers are also becoming critical to the ‘Big 10’ food and beverage companies. Oxfam assessed how the policies and commitments of the Big 10 stack up in our Behind the Brands report. We found that most of the Big 10 are missing the mark in ensuring a fair deal for small-scale farmers. This is a missed opportunity, not only because small-scale producers are central to the supply-security concerns of the Big 10, but also because rural economic development is so strongly linked to small-scale agriculture.

Here’s the development case. While the world produces more than enough food to feed everyone, 900 million people go to bed hungry each night. 80% of these hungry people live in rural areas, mostly working as small-scale producers. As Bill Gates said in 2009 at the World Food Prize ceremony:

“Helping the poorest smallholder farmers grow more crops and get them to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty.”

There are over 400 million small-scale farms on which 1.5 billion small-holder and landless farmers earn their livelihoods and grow their food. Some of these farmers are able to crack into the global supply chain. Too often, these ‘lucky’ few are left baring disproportionate levels of risks and costs. The vast majority are left behind, excluded by business models that fail to invest in and adapt to the realities of small-scale agriculture.

Among the Big 10, Unilever tops Oxfam’s Scorecard on farmers with a score of 7 out of 10. Mars and Nestle come equal second, with a score of 5. Unilever is distinguished mostly by its Sustainable Agriculture Code, which sets out guidelines and requirements for suppliers of Unilever to meet. As most of the Big 10 don’t deal with small-scale farmers directly, it’s the standards they require of their suppliers that matters most. Unilever’s code asks suppliers to work with producer organisations and provide training to small-scale farmers, as well as having specific clauses dealing with profit margins and local market opportunities for small-scale farmers. However, most supplier codes of the Big 10 do little nothing to single out any support or protection for small-scale farmers.

Oxfam hopes to see the Big 10 improve their policies and commitments to small-scale farmers in their supply chains. It starts with understanding the needs of these farmers and knowing where they are. Small-scale producers too often bear disproportionate risks and costs, but profits fail to trickle down. The Big 10 need to use their power and influence to stop this injustice. Most critically, the Big 10 need to make absolutely clear that they expect small-scale farmers to be treated fairly by all suppliers. Taking a strong stand on this in their supplier codes is an important step we hope more of the Big 10 take.

Who among the Big 10 will challenge Unilever for the top-score on farmers? Bragging rights is up for grabs.

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This post by Erinch Sahan is part of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read more on land, women, transparency, water, workers, and climate change!

My colleagues and I were surrounded by women dressed in their best. Their colorful, patterned pagnes, or cloth wraps, were everywhere I turned in the village of Kouadioyaokro, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). I was in West Africa in January to listen to women cocoa farmers about their roles in the supply chains that result in my favorite chocolate treats.

Etchi Avla on her cocoa farm in Botende, Ivory Coast in January. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s top cocoa exporter, producing about 40 percent of the world’s crop, and used to make the mass-produced foods like candy bars and chocolate milk you find at your neighborhood grocery story. The United States imports more than half of its cocoa beans from the West African country—three times more than from the runner up, Ecuador. The vast majority of cocoa production comes from small farms of less than 5 hectares in size. These farms are, for the most part, owned and operatedby men.

It seemed every woman that lived in the village showed up to our meeting in Kouadioyaokro. These women were ready to be heard and to be recognized! While women play essential roles in farming cocoa, their work traditionally has been undervalued, ignored, and often underpaid.

Through our discussions, we found little evidence on the ground that the international food and beverage industry are doing its part to uplift the livelihoods of female smallholder farmers in the cocoa industry. Extraordinary profits from cocoa are built on the labor of millions of women (and men) living in poverty like those whom I encountered in Cote d’Ivoire.

Oxfam last week released its Behind the Brands report. The report contains a Scorecard that ranks the top 10 food companies on seven themes: workers, farmers, women, land, water, climate and transparency. one key area where companies were failing—women.

Women represent at least half of the workforce in agriculture and women’s work in agriculture is often not visible, or simply not valued, despite the immense physical and inner strength required by the women with whom I met in Cote d’Ivoire. Complex and long-standing gender divisions result in women being excluded from more profitable aspects of agricultural enterprises. Women have limited access to resources such as land, credit, technical agricultural support, social security, and other services. They do unpaid work at home, face high levels of illiteracy, and lack bargaining power. They often face discrimination and unequal treatment on commercial farms, limiting their access to resources, equal wages, training, and leadership positions.

The greatest paradox is that women are often the key to food security for their own families. For this reason, Oxfam would like companies to begin the race by improving their policies and practices that affect female smallholder farmers.

Companies can begin by engaging with people like Olga Rosine Adou, the founder and president of the cooperative, COOPASA, in southeastern Cote d’Ivoire. When we met, Olga told us that cocoa companies could help her and other women cocoa farmers in her community.

“We want these conditions to get better. We want men to understand that women can do what men do. With international pressure, things will start to change.”

Oxfam is calling specifically on the three largest cocoa sourcing companies in the world—Mars, Mondelez and Nestle—to do more for women cocoa farmers. These companies must:

#1 Look: ‘Know and show’ that women are treated fairly by assessing and reporting on the economic and social status of women in cocoa supply chains.

#2 Listen: Respond to the demands of women in cocoa supply chains and make public commitments to protecting women’s rights and ensuring opportunities for female smallholder farmers.

#3 Act: Take concrete steps to redress gender inequities in the company’s cocoa supply chains and influence others to do so as well.

This International Women’s Day—March 8, 2013, let’s take a stand for women who work on cocoa farms, and those facing inequalities around the world.

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This post by Irit Tamir is part of a Behind the Brands blog series on Politics of Poverty that examines the seven issues relating to poverty and big food companies’ supply chains. Read more on land, farmers, transparency, water, workers, and climate change!

Jonathan Jacoby is Policy and Campaigns Manager in the Private Sector Department at Oxfam America.

The ingredients of a memorable event can be hard to come by.  I may be (am) biased, but Oxfam’s gathering last Friday morning in New York City to highlight our new Behind the Brands scorecard had them all:

#1 A stunning and symbolic setting

In the 29th floor auditorium of Bloomberg‘s headquarters, we had found a venue with a sense of power.  Thanks to Curtis Ravenel and his Sustainability team at Bloomberg LP, the view of midtown Manhattan, Central Park, and the East River was exquisite.

#2 A sumptuous spread

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and this one started us off right.

#3 A skillful scene-setter

In his intro, Oxfam America president Ray Offenheiser demonstrated our long-standing focus on food and agriculture—Oxfam’s proverbial “bread and butter”. He then laid out our approach to evaluating the role of the world’s 10 largest food and beverage companies on 7 key themes through the Behind the Brands project.

With the scorecard displayed behind him, Ray saluted how far the “Big Ten” – the most influential brands in the global food system – have come, but he made clear how far they still have to go to develop comprehensive policies on the social aspects of sustainable agriculture. He made both a humanitarian case and a long-term business case for companies to compete in a “race to the top”. Such a race will help secure the long-term bottom line while ensuring that the planet’s 7 billion food consumers have enough to eat and that the developing world’s 1.5 billion food producers (small-scale farmers and farm workers, especially women) enjoy the rights and opportunities to thrive. 

Panel at Behind the Brands March 1st event: (L to R) Jane Nelson, Erika Karp, Bennett Freeman, Puvan Selvanathan, Stephanie Strom, Ray Offenheiser. Photo: Ipek Gencsu / Oxfam America

#4 A classy cast of characters

On the panel were:

• Erika Karp: head of global sector research at global investment bank UBS; board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and other initiatives bringing environmental and social factors into clearer focus for the business and investor communities
• Puvan Selvanathan: head of sustainable agriculture at the United Nations Global Compact; former Chief Sustainability Officer at major Malaysian conglomerate and palm oil producer Sime Darby
• Jane Nelson: lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School; director of its Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative; and a Brookings Institution senior fellow and all-around public intellectual on the subject.
• Bennett Freeman: senior executive at leading social investment firm Calvert; former State Department official and chief speechwriter; and yes, former board member of Oxfam America.

#5 An inquisitive and insightful moderator

Stephanie Strom, veteran New York Times business and financial journalist, brought to the fore the panelists’ diverse perspectives and enabled them to achieve a certain organic chemistry.

#6 Not just blah, blah, blah

Here are some of the highlights of the substantive dialogue:

• Transparency as Transformational: The panelists applauded the scorecard’s accessibility on complex sustainability issues, as well as its focus on transparent supply chains as a means to spark transformational action. Transparency is a powerful catalyst to get “competitive juices flowing” among these industry leaders, as Bennett Freeman of Calvert put it. He and other panelists spoke passionately about the need both to praise these food and beverage companies for the good they are doing while holding them accountable for a lack of clear policies and for any harmful practices. There was some discussion among panelists about the importance of bolstering and empowering internal champions within such companies to enable bold action in the executive suite.

• Consumer Power: Unsurprisingly, the discussion also turned to consumer values and trends. Various panelists underscored the power of the consumer, especially against the now-familiar backdrop of social media campaigning.  Erika Karp of UBS eloquently observed the potential for a “tiny pause” in consumers’ decision-making in the grocery aisle—replicated many millions of times—to have a massive impact on a brand’s bottom line.

• Investing in the Future: Beyond the covenant between brand and buyer, a few panelists highlighted the utility of the scorecard in influencing the next generation of global institutional investors.  Erika Karp pointed to the $34 trillion global wealth transfer underway and to the fact that the young global elite are increasingly concerned with sustainability issues. It turns out that the new jet-set seem increasingly likely to take a high-speed train instead of a private plane to get from London to Paris or from Beijing to Shanghai.

• Small-Scale Farmers: Jane Nelson of Harvard set off a good discussion about corporate responsibility and the role of smallholder farmers.  Their challenge, she argued, is not exploitation but rather exclusion, in that the vast majority of such farmers are not part of a global value chain. Panelists pointed to the role of NGOs in building smallholder farmer capacity, and also to that of companies in deploying technologies and techniques to empower small-scale farmers to compete.

#7 Constructive Criticism

Of course, Oxfam fielded a few questions about the scorecard methodology and a few critiques of the overall approach.

Jane Nelson was most vocal about limitations, speaking to: 1) the limits of what companies can do to address capacity issues of smallholder farmers; 2) the challenge of transparency and the unfairness of suggesting a “veil of secrecy”; and 3) the need to look beyond competitive scorecards to collective responses.

Erika Karp spoke of the importance of moving beyond the “blunt instrument” of a scorecard to shared, objective measures for assessing company performance and to a “common language” between stakeholders.

Puvan Selvanathan of the UN Global Compact urged Oxfam to distinguish clearly between a company commitment and a company policy, akin to the difference in politics between a campaign promise and a statute. He also hopes to see “some green” on the scorecard over time.

Along with Oxfam colleagues Chris Jochnick and Erinch Sahan, Ray Offenheiser stated that Oxfam will continue to modify and potentially expand the scorecard, suggesting that the effort would not be a “one-off.”

#8 Responses from the Food Companies

Oxfam was pleased to have an impressive showing at the event by more than half of the “Big Ten” in the Behind the Brands scorecard: Associated British Foods, Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Unilever. A number of their representatives offered comments welcoming the scorecard and its close examination of newer frontiers such as gender and land rights. Some companies pointed out that there is collective action underway to address key sustainability issues, while others acknowledged the need for future action on emerging issues.

#9 A Way Forward

Picking up on Jane Nelson’s call for collective action to address systemic issues, Ray challenged companies to advocate jointly for government investments in foreign aid to restore once-robust national agriculture programs and extension services. He identified “an opportunity for alliance,” with collective action by the companies, and perhaps also by NGOs, toward the policies of governments and of agricultural traders. By way of historical example, Ray cited the “corporate statesmanship” of a group of American CEOs in jointly promoting the Marshall Plan to rebuild European markets after World War II.

#10 Merging “Long-term-ism” and “the Fierce Urgency of Now”

Erika Karp pointed to the need for companies to shed the yoke of quarterly earnings reports and consider the long term.  Apparently, the CEO of mining giant BHP Billiton declared it “the happiest day of my life” when his company no longer required such frequent reporting.

But to many nodding heads on the panel and in the audience, Karp also echoed MLK Jr. by speaking of the “fierce urgency of now” and of the “unprecedented consciousness” enabled by today’s technology, knowledge, institutions, and activism.

Indeed, there’s no time like the present for the Big Ten companies to lead.

It is often said that politicians who want to bury a bad story, put out their news late on a Friday afternoon in order to avoid the media scrutiny. It’s called the Friday news dump. Today at 5pm, our country’s most venerable media institution, the New York Times, dumped its own awful news on the world, announcing they will be discontinuing their Green blog.

The decision is incredibly disheartening if not altogether unexpected. A little more than a month ago I called the paper’s move to shutter the environment pod “an unmitigated disaster,” predicting that the closure would undermine the paper’s focus on critical issues facing our planet. At the time editors expressed unwavering commitment to continuing their coverage of environmental issues. But it was hard to see then how that promise could be kept. Today’s news feels like a nail in the coffin of that particular pledge.

Some have argued the changes could ultimately be a good thing. But let me give a timely example of why I think that’s wrong. This week Oxfam released a major report into the social and environmental policies of food and beverage companies. Stephanie Strom from the Times covered it. But because of a hitch in the news cycle and the timing of her article, the only place her editors could find space for the story was on the Green blog.

Now that the blog is gone, what will happen with stories like this? Chances are that they will just go away. Theoretically they could live somewhere else. But if the blog is closing for a reason, why wouldn’t the stories that fed it be affected?

I know this all sounds like a very self-interested complaint, a flack hand-wringing about how I’m going to get coverage for my employer. But obviously this goes beyond stories about Oxfam’s research. The idea that the Times would take all of its reporters who are focused on environmental issues and reassign them to other beats, then close down the most significant space on their website for these topics, yet somehow manage to “continue to cover these areas of national and international life just as aggressively,” seems, well, laughable.

The editors should skip the spin and just admit that they have made a business decision to deprioritize these vital, if soon-to-be neglected, energy and environment issues.

The launch of our Behind The Brands campaign and Oxfam’s first campaign action call to Mars, Mondelez International, and Nestle to tackle gender inequality in their cocoa supply chains garnered an immediate response from Mars through a blog post where they describe work they are doing with women in their Sustainable Cocoa Initiative:

“…the Sustainable Cocoa Initiative is designed to work with these communities to help ease social hurdles like poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity by addressing the core challenges that farmers face. We recognize the important role women will play in addressing these problems and in moving their communities forward.”

Nestle for its part welcomed their position at the top of the index even as they all but ignored our substantive critique of their policies on women.  Mondelez responded in media reports expressing disappointment that we did not focus solely on areas where everyone already agrees.  None of the companies committed to change any policies to address their current failures.

Olga Rosine Adou is the president of COOPASA, a cocoa cooperative in Agboville, Ivory Coast. She says international companies that buy cocoa from the women she represents could do more to improve their livelihoods. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

The truth is we recognize that all three of these companies have projects that seek to help farmers.  Most of these efforts are done to increase the yields of cocoa farmers, which can lead to better livelihoods.  We also recognize that these projects in some instances have reached out to women to work with them in bettering their communities.  Nevertheless, the projects the companies tout in their public relations are piecemeal at best.

While projects such as these can be a good tool for testing practices and understanding their impacts, they do not represent a holistic approach to supply chain management.  Clear policies that come from the top of a company, and that are communicated to all employees, buyers, and their suppliers throughout the supply chain, can result in more positive impacts for all agricultural producers and workers.  Oxfam is looking for the three companies to improve their policies across their cocoa supply chains so that all women working within them can benefit from increased training programs, cooperative membership, access to agricultural inputs, and living wages.

Together Mars, Mondelez, and Nestle control more than 40% of the global chocolate market, purchase nearly one third of the world’s harvested cocoa and net more than $45 billion a year in confectionary sales.  They have the power to influence suppliers, governments, and certification bodies and they can influence policy shifts and practices in the sector.

While women increasingly occupy positions of power in food and beverage company headquarters and are frequently the targets of marketing campaigns, women working in food companies’ supply chains in developing countries continue to be denied similar advances in wealth, status, or opportunity. For example:

• The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that women small-scale farmers in Africa own just 1 percent of agricultural land, receive only 7 percent of extension services, and benefit from less than 10 percent of agricultural credit is offered to women.
• As much of 60 percent of the global agricultural workforce is made up of women who produce everything from corn to tomatoes, vanilla to tea.

Overcoming gender discrimination could be the most important thing that can be done to cultivate equitable and sustainable growth.  As The Economist reported back in 2006, the increase in employment of women in developed countries during the past decade has added more to global growth than has the economic emergence of China.

While speaking to women cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast last month, I heard time and again that being a cocoa farmer for women was simply harder than it was for men because they lacked some of the support that men were getting.  Olga Rosine Adou is a rare entity in the Ivory Coast as a woman who is President of a cocoa cooperative in Agboville.  Olga told us that were many things she could use from the international chocolate companies that buy cocoa in the Ivory Coast to make the jobs of the women farmers she represents more efficient and remunerative.

“[T]here are many things we want. For example, we want to be trained, and taught about what steps to take to do it well. We also need tools and equipment, (machetes, motos, buckets, etc.) to get the work done. If we had those things, it’d be easier. We also need pesticides and fertilizers to treat our farms.”

Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign sets out three clear steps for companies like Mars, Mondelez and Nestle to address women’s unfair treatment comprehensively. The three companies have made significant commitments to source certified cocoa and have worked on projects through a number of stakeholder initiatives demonstrating the companies’ willingness to engage and the possibility of dealing collectively with complex issues. But, it’s now time to address women’s rights in the same fashion.

It is plain for all to see that women who grow food companies’ raw ingredients are facing hunger and unfair pay. But so far none of the companies has stepped up to lead the way.  Food companies know about these inequities. Behind the Brands is telling them it’s time to deal with them systematically.