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.

By Keith Slack, Global Program Manager, Extractive Industries. This post originally appeared on the blog of the US Institute of Peace’s International Network for Economics and Conflict.

“Si a la vida, no a la mina” (Yes to life, no to the mine) is a rallying cry heard across many parts of rural Latin America these days. Mining, as well as oil and gas extraction, has exploded across the region in the last decade, driven by high prices for gold and industrial metals like copper that are needed primarily to feed the Chinese economy. This boom has also been experienced in Africa and Asia, where governments have sought to exploit their resource endowments to drive development. Fragile states like Sudan, Burma and Afghanistan have also begun to develop their mining sectors. The expanding mining sector has contributed to strong economic growth in some countries but has also generated social conflicts in rural areas that must be urgently addressed.

Area near Tintaya Copper Mine (Espinar), Cusco, Peru. Photo: Chris Hufstader / Oxfam America

The heart of the issue is that mining activity has come into direct competition with another predominant means of economic development in rural areas: small-scale agriculture. Tensions over control of land and, most importantly, water have led to community protests and violent conflict. Reconciling these two important development drivers has become a critical governance issue, particularly in the most fragile states where the conflicts between the two can often be seen most starkly.

In theory, both mining and agriculture can provide pathways out of poverty. The World Bank and development-focused academic researchers have emphasized the critical role of agriculture in promoting rural development. (Three-quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas.) Agriculture provides direct benefits to those who engage in it. Farmers receive payments for crops they produce, which they can then use to invest in future production and to pay for their families’ basic needs. Mining can also play a role in promoting development, although more indirectly, by generating revenues for governments. Governments can use taxes and royalties paid by mining companies for infrastructure investments and other productive purposes. Mining companies also pay for community development programs, build schools and roads, and make other investments.

Unfortunately, the compatibility of these two development paths, which tend to take place in the same rural areas, is at best questionable. Mining generates significant “externalities,” e.g. water pollution, that can have a direct impact on agricultural production. These negative impacts can be permanent and render previously fertile agricultural land unusable. Mining also requires large amounts of land that could otherwise be used for agricultural production. This sets up a direct competition with small-scale agriculture for control and use of land. In some countries such as Ghana, farmers displaced by mining projects turn to small-scale mining as a replacement livelihood. This can perpetuate a cycle of poverty and conflict in which these farmers-turned-miners are forcibly evicted and beaten by police for coming onto land claimed by large-scale mining projects.

Mining companies argue that mining and agriculture are not necessarily incompatible. But there are few examples of where this has been the case, particularly in developing countries, where oversight of the mining industry is often very weak. Finding ways to reconcile these two economic activities is urgently needed to reduce conflicts and ensure that mining’s benefits contribute to long-term sustainable development in rural economies.

Communities relocated to make way for gold mines in Ghana struggle with loss of agricultural land, unemployment, and environmental damage. Photo: Neil Brander / Oxfam America

Governments and companies should take specific steps now to address this situation. First, the environmental impact assessment process for mining projects needs to be significantly strengthened and made more independent. At present, governments rely on information provided by companies, which is most often not reviewed by an independent third-party. Companies thus have an incentive to downplay potential impacts of their operations on land and water in agricultural areas. In countries such as Peru, local agricultural communities’ lack of confidence in these environmental reviews contributes to anxieties about the impacts of mining, which in turn contributes to conflict. Additionally, mining is increasingly done in “clusters,” meaning several mines operate in the same geographic area in order to take advantage of shared infrastructure and processing facilities. The cumulative impacts on land and water of several mines operating in the same area have not been thoroughly examined. The use of what are known as “strategic” environmental impact assessments, which take into account these cumulative impacts, would be an important step to increasing communities’ confidence.

Improved planning on how land will be used is another crucial step that governments should take. Mining concessions are often awarded without consideration for impacts on agricultural production. Later this year Oxfam America will publish research that shows graphically how mining and oil concessions have expanded dramatically in recent years in agriculturally productive areas of Peru and Ghana. Zoning land for particular uses, e.g. mining or agriculture, would help reduce conflict by establishing clear rules for how land will be used. Greater dialogue between the mining and agricultural sectors would be helpful. In Peru recently, the mining and agriculture ministries have signed a cooperation agreement. This is potentially a positive, although overdue, step.

Reconciling mining with agriculture in developing countries, particularly in the most fragile states, won’t be easy. It may ultimately require the admission that the two simply are incompatible over the long-term in particular areas. What is clear is that these discussions are urgently needed now so that conflict and violence produced by the juxtaposition of these two sectors diminishes and that countries can benefit from both their above-and below-the-ground resources.

For our readers who live in Washington, DC or who are planning to visit this month, you are cordially invited to a pop-up gallery exhibit in Washington, DC, from April 10^th to the 21^st,  featuring photographs from the acclaimed photographer Emma Hardy, just in time for the World Bank’s Land and Poverty conference and the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings.

Woman collecting water snails for food, Andong slum, Cambodia. Photo: Emma Hardy / Oxfam

Where: Avenue Suites Hotel, 2500 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC 20037. (Metro: Foggy Bottom)

When: Wednesday, April 10^th to Sunday April 21^st, 5 to 10pm daily.

Access to the gallery is free. Visitors who mention Oxfam at the bar enjoy specials from 5 to 7pm daily.

For more information, email krobbins@oxfamamerica.org or see www.oxfam.org/land.

A community of 1,367 families were uprooted from central Phnom Penh in June 2006 and forcibly relocated to open swamp land in Andong, 13 miles from the city and their livelihoods. Why? To make way for a shopping mall that is yet to be built. Hardy traveled to Cambodia to capture the story of this community and others, fighting to reclaim their rights to own, inhabit, and work the land they once owned.

The World Bank influences how land is bought and sold on a global scale. Oxfam’s GROW’s campaign is calling for urgent action from the World Bank to halt the speed and scale of land grabbing around the world.

Add your voice here and consider yourself invited to the exhibit! We hope to see you there!

Emily Greenspan is an extractive industries policy and advocacy advisor with Oxfam America.

Oxfam America’s Extractive Industries Team today released new research:

Human Rights and Social Conflict in the Oil, Gas, and Mining Industries: Policy recommendations for national human rights institutions.

Let me try to break down what the paper is all about.

Godfried Ofori, of the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea, stands in front of a mine pit and waste dump area near Golden Star Resources mine in southwest Ghana. Photo: Jane Hahn / Oxfam America

What do we mean by social conflict?

More than 500 protesters took to the streets in Prestea in the western region of Ghana in 2005 to demonstrate against Bogoso Gold Mines (a subsidiary of Golden Star Resources), resulting in injuries to seven protesters. Tensions grew as a result of alleged water pollution and damage to homes from mining explosives and eventually led to project suspension.

Social conflicts and controversies surrounding large-scale oil and mining projects often stem from concerns around potential or actual environmental impacts and land acquisition disputes, and sometimes erupt into violence. Past Oxfam blogs have highlighted examples of this in countries where we work like Peru and Ghana.

Oxfam America’s recommendations for companies and government agencies charged with managing the oil and mining industries primarily aim to increase community participation in decision making around projects, and ultimately at preventing social conflicts. National human rights institutions (NHRIs) represented one interesting policy avenue that we had yet to address.

What do we mean by a national human rights institution?

State-sponsored NHRIs–tasked with protecting and promoting human rights– have grown in popularity in recent decades. To date, the UN International Coordinating Committee on NHRIs has accredited 99 of these institutions globally. The closest equivalent agency in the US would likely be the US Commission on Civil Rights, which is tasked with informing national civil rights policy and studying alleged deprivations of voting rights and discrimination.

While NHRIs take on a diversity of forms and functions, they will often provide human rights education, hear human rights complaints, mediate complaint resolution, and/or enforce remedies. Some of these institutions are charged with a narrow mandate to protect the human rights of particular groups (e.g., minorities or persons with disabilities) or to protect particular rights (e.g., anti-discrimination), while others have a broad mandate to protect and promote all human rights for all persons. Some NHRIs, like Ghana’s, have a formal mandate to investigate complaints about human rights abuses by private entities, including businesses, while others do not.

In the context of the extractive industries, NHRIs may be called on to address a wide range of human rights abuses. These could include, for example, impacts on the right to property such as by forced displacement or damage to crops or houses, or violence directed at local communities by police or security forces.

How can NHRIs better address social conflicts related to extractive industries?

The new Oxfam research launched in Washington, DC today presents a framework for evaluating NHRIs’ impact on promoting and protecting human rights in the context of the extractive industries, and how this framework can be applied in individual country contexts. The research identifies five categories of determinants for NHRI effectiveness: independence, power, promotion, empowerment, and remediation. These were based on a growing body of literature on effectiveness factors for NHRIs, and then prioritized based on the unique features of oil and mining projects, e.g. their long-term, large-scale nature and their tendency to impact remote and marginalized communities.

An open pit mine in the town of Prestea, Ghana, where Oxfam parter organization, WACAM, has been supporting the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea in its efforts to negotiate with a mining company around issues related to air and water pollution, and the proposed expansion of mining operations. Photo: Jeff Deutsch / Oxfam America

The research includes a case study on Ghana’s NHRI, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). Based on a literature review and interviews with civil society leaders, mining industry representatives, and CHRAJ officials in Ghana, researchers applied their new framework with CHRAJ to come up with recommendations to strengthen its effectiveness in the mining and emerging oil sectors. Results indicate that CHRAJ should develop a systematic and targeted strategy for communicating with communities affected by oil, gas, and mining operations. Information provided by CHRAJ should ideally provide community members with a clear understanding of their rights, how extractive projects may violate them, and how to seek remedy if these rights are violated.

Why should NHRIs engage more with communities?

While the new framework for evaluating NHRI effectiveness will generate different results based on differing country contexts, the finding in the Ghanaian context that community engagement should be a key priority for NHRIs will likely resonate in many of the countries that experience human rights abuses and conflict around mining and oil projects. Often the complex impacts of extractive projects are difficult for community members to anticipate or respond to, particularly when they involve politically-charged issues such as resettlement or technical issues such as water pollution from mine runoff. When NHRIs engage with more informed and active communities, they will find their education and enforcement mandates much easier to fulfill.

If more NHRIs begin to effectively and proactively engage with project-affected communities in preventing human rights abuses and conflict, not only local communities and host governments will benefit. The global community will also benefit from the subsequent increase in stability around the extraction of the oil and mineral resources on which we all rely.

Paul O’Brien is the Vice President for Policy and Campaigns at Oxfam America.

Will Raj Shah commit USAID to joining the top 10% most transparent donors by the time he leaves his USAID Administrator post?

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Photo: Eric Bridiers / US Mission via Flickr http://bit.ly/10bPOkO

He might do so, but looking at his recent speeches, it’s no sure thing. More likely, “technological innovation” will continue to win out over “governance” issues like transparency in his priorities. If yesterday’s New York Times interview on child mortality is any indication, he mentions innovation seven times for every mention of transparency. His speech last year on agriculture is fairly typical. Even when he talks about tackling corruption, his proposed fix is to call on “the world’s brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and engineers to design breakthrough technologies to make all voices count.”

Don’t get me wrong—I believe Mr. Shah gets it. His recent progress report on USAID Forward shows his bona fides on transparency. But if you believe that poverty is a function of power imbalances as much as innovation deficits, then you want USAID’s leadership talking about governance, incentives and democratizing “power” as much as helping people to get more and better “stuff”. Teach a man to fish with a high tech rod, and you will feed him for a lifetime. Unless of course, someone steals all the fish, the water gets polluted, or the government sells off the access rights!

So I hope that in the next four years, Mr. Shah and USAID will talk more about power and governance. I hope he will seek to strengthen institutions by holding his own and then others more accountable. What’s one concrete way to do this?  Don’t just talk about transparency as an end in itself. (It was hearing him deliver this speech on the International Aid Transparency Initiative last year that got me worried). I want Mr. Shah to explain why transparency is so important, and explicitly link transparency to making local institutions more politically accountable to their own citizens. I want him to talk more about how functioning, inclusive domestic institutions in developing countries are the indispensable foundation for innovations to take hold.

In 2004, the Minister of Finance in Afghanistan asked me to explain what the US government was spending on development in his country. Finding out turned into a massive undertaking. It wasn’t just that USAID had no one spreadsheet capturing their work. There were a dozen other US agencies working there and no-one had managed to put it all together. As a competent technocrat, the Minister and his President wanted to build up political legitimacy and to report to the Afghan people on what international aid was delivering. We had no answers. They wanted to hold other ministries accountable for how they managed funds in health care, education and rural rehabilitation. They couldn’t.

That’s why it frustrated me to no end when Publish What You Fund’s pilot ranked USAID in the bottom 36% of most transparent donors in 2011. It is why I took heart when USAID had climbed into the top 37% by the 2012 full assessment. That progress made me wonder whether Mr. Shah and USAID do get the importance of transparency after all.

Now, he should commit USAID to becoming a top 10% donor on transparency by the time he leaves, and explain once and for all, how transparency can help local institutions become more accountable to their own citizens in delivering lasting development results.

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.

***

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.

***

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!

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.

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.

Yesterday Oxfam released the Behind the Brands Report and Scorecard aimed at shedding light on the global food system and its massive social and environmental footprint. The food system employs one billion workers (or a third of the global work force), uses 70% of the world’s fresh water, emits close to 30% of all greenhouse gases, and sources from hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers, many living on the edge of survival. Oxfam’s campaign is aimed at giving consumers and investors a little more power to influence the companies controlling that system.

The Scorecard is built on an interactive web platform, allowing anyone to trace their favorite products and brands back to the parent company. On the site, the Scorecard ranks the top ten largest food and beverage companies (the “Big 10”) by evaluating the companies’ policies, commitments, and suppliers. People can dig deeper into the scoring of a specific company across seven themes relating to poverty and their supply chains: smallholder farmers, workers, women, land, water, climate change and transparency. The site enables people to then send messages about the issues most important to them directly to the companies.

A scorecard of this nature is sure to provoke pushback, and here are a few things we have heard or anticipate hearing from company executives:

First, the Big 10 will point the finger at other powerful actors in the food system such as governments, retailers, traders, etc. Oxfam also works to hold these actors accountable. (See our prior report on the big traders.) But the major food and beverage companies exert enormous influence, particularly with respect to certain commodities. The food system can be roughly illustrated below, with billions of consumers at one end, 1.5 billion farmers at the other, and a small group of companies in the middle. We estimate that 500 companies control 70% of that food system. In some sectors as in cocoa, three companies, Nestle, Mondelez and Mars, purchase 30% of the global cocoa supply. We also know that these companies benefit from having great influence through their marketing, trade groups, public sector and business contacts—well beyond their particular market share. Ultimately, we chose to target the Big 10 since they serve as the critical bridge between consumers and the wider system.

Companies will also lament that we don’t give them sufficient credit for good work on the ground. There is merit to that critique. We know of good projects and we’ve even worked with companies on some of them. However, we couldn’t possibly measure all the projects across 14 commodities in the developing world, and that wasn’t our intention. These projects get plenty of visibility already. They benefit from the vast corporate marketing prowess of the major brands and we will highlight some of effective projects on our platform.

Our Scorecard asks the bigger questions: Are companies acknowledging the full range of their impacts? Are they measuring and reporting on those impacts? Are they committing to basic norms and standards? And are they using their influence and supplier codes to push those commitments down through their supply chains? Those are the building blocks for addressing these issues comprehensively. No company should be able to claim it is responsible if it doesn’t acknowledge the problem of land grabs, or assess discrimination against women, or disclose its major suppliers, no matter how many demonstration projects it has.

The flip side of our high level focus is that the Scorecard doesn’t examine particular scandals either. Coca Cola scores better than most among the companies on worker rights, despite a long-standing campaign (“Killer Coke”) for the murders of union organizers at a bottling plant in Colombia. Oxfam considers a company’s public commitments, transparency, and supplier codes as good proxies for practice, but we also recognize the limitations. The Behind the Brand Campaign offers a platform to raise both good and bad practices on the ground, and we will be digging in to certain Scorecard themes and company conduct over the course of the Campaign, starting with cocoa and gender.

Finally, companies (or more likely stakeholders) may complain that we are only looking at one end of the supply chain. We do in fact cover some issues more broadly, transparency and greenhouse gas emissions for example. But, we acknowledge that there is plenty more to consider with these brands, starting with nutrition and obesity. If anyone questions the capacity for mendacity of major food brands, the scathing New York Times cover article last week on the “hyper-engineered, savagely marketed, additive-creating battle for American ‘stomach share’” should put those doubts to rest. We simply weren’t able to tackle all of that in one Scorecard, but see this initiative as filling an important piece of the puzzle.

The Big 10 have already shown that they are willing and able to address complex issues, particularly when they see a business case or feel sufficient pressure. Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign is all about both sides of that—highlighting the bottom line and strengthening the consumer, investor, and public constituencies who bring the heat.