Andrew L. Yarrow is a senior research advisor at Oxfam America who studies inequality and low-wage work in the US.

Americans are struggling. The middle class is disappearing. Younger generations may not do as well as their parents.

None of this is news. Yet, behind the widespread recognition that our economy remains sour well into the “recovery” is the troubling reality that 1 in 3 Americans—more than 100 million people—struggle to make ends meet, living in poverty or “near poverty,” based on income thresholds set by the Census Bureau.

While there is much talk about the dangers of our nearly $17 trillion federal debt, there is little public discussion of the even greater economic crisis that consigns 50 million people to poverty and tens of millions more to low-wage jobs that barely lift them out of poverty. That is why Oxfam America has launched Voices on US Poverty, an initiative intended to stimulate discussion about US poverty. Essays from more than two dozen writers, which are being published in news media throughout the country, consider the specific challenges facing poor families and children, immigrants, minorities, and the working poor, as well as the broader nature of economic injustice. They bring such perspectives as economics, theology, journalism and social activism, and offer ideas on how to truly fix our economy in ways that benefit all Americans.

Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr.

“There are clearly moral and economic problems when millions of Americans are desperate for work and unable to meet their families’ basic needs,” Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt and Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr., two military leaders participating in Oxfam’s initiative, write.

“A free-market system that does not provide opportunities for all of us to succeed undermines one of our most convincing arguments against totalitarian regimes and state-run economies that often oppose our interests abroad,” they say.

What does it mean to be poor? Wealth and poverty are relative terms that vary greatly over time and by country. The World Bank defines poverty as “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” This can mean that people are unable to meet basic human needs (housing, food, clothing, health care), but in the US it can also mean that they struggle to stay afloat with jobs that pay just a few dollars above the US$7.25-per-hour minimum wage, with no benefits or job security. These are not the desperately poor in developing countries who live on less than $2 a day, but they are American men and women and families who can barely afford a cheap apartment and groceries, who patronize pawn shops and payday lenders, who can’t afford to get sick, and who are likely to have more debt than savings. Government benefits and charity help them—somewhat, but not enough to enable them to lead decent lives.

The numbers are chilling:

• One in six Americans lives below the federal poverty line, with incomes less than $11,722 a year for an individual and $23,497 for a family of four.
• The number of people in poverty is the highest in the 53 years that statistics have been collected, and the poverty rate has risen every year since 2006.
• Another one-sixth of Americans lives in near poverty, with incomes between the poverty level and twice the poverty level.
• About 6.6 percent of Americans, or 20.4 million people, live in severe poverty, with incomes less than half of the poverty threshold, or about $5,800 for an individual and $11,700 for a family of four.
• Forty-four percent of children live in poverty or near poverty.
• More than half of African Americans and Hispanics have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.

The picture looks even worse using an alternative measure of poverty developed by the National Academy of Sciences and the Census Bureau. Under this new Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account regional differences, health care, housing, payroll tax and other costs, as well as government benefits. (See comparison of the measures below.) The number of Americans with incomes below twice the poverty level shoots up to about 150 million, or half the entire population.

“Poverty is about power, not scarcity,” Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president writes. “As Americans, we believe that our nation must lead. Poverty and inequality, and the social exclusion they breed, are wrongs to be righted, whether they occur in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or the United States.”

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!

Frank Mechielsen is the Private Sector Lobbyist at Oxfam Novib.

Do the Top 10 companies featured in the Behind the Brands Scorecard have transparent policies? Do they share their practices with the public?

It is not easy to look beyond the tip of food system’s iceberg, to see how the farmers and workers produce our favourite brands. Who has produced the NESCAFÉ which I drink? Where do the coffee workers live who harvested the coffee beans? Which trader sold them to Nestlé? To whom did the cocoa farmers produce and sell their cocoa beans? What price did they get?

But Oxfam found in the Behind the Brands scorecard process that some companies are more transparent about their sourcing than others.

I was positively surprised that Mars, a private company, is relatively open about its sourcing volumes and buying agents. As a family corporation, Mars does not have shareholders peeking over its shoulders. Only Unilever is more open about the volumes of tea, palm oil, tomatoes, and other commodities it buys. And Nestlé is more transparent about the sourcing countries.

I was also impressed by Danone, which gets its highest thematic score of 6 on transparency. It is number two of the Big 10. The policies of Danone related to women, farmers, and land are weak, but at least the company is becoming more transparent about their sourcing because of their recently published forest footprint policy.

On the other end, it gets murky. We find General Mills with a score of 2 and Associated British Foods with a score of 3 on transparency. General Mills provides information about the volumes of palm oil only and disclosure about buying agents is limited to one cane sugar supplier. Associated British Foods does inform the public about the volumes of palm oil and sugar it buys, but no further information about the sourcing volumes of other commodities.

Oxfam also looked for evidence of food companies’ transparency in their lobbying activities. The European Transparency Register is a voluntary initiative for companies to provide some information about their political activities.  Neither General Mills nor Associated British Food report in Europe on their lobby activities and, according to the Global Reporting Initiative, are less transparent about their corporate reporting than most of the Big 10.

It’s what can’t be seen under the water that is dangerous. Food companies, more clarity required.

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This post by Frank Mechielsen 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, water, 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!

Yesterday Oxfam received a response to its call to action from Nestlé, one of the three chocolate companies we’ve engaged on behalf of women cocoa farmers. We welcome Nestlé‘s letter as an indication of Nestlé‘s intent to do more for women cocoa farmers and workers. Nestlé‘s Executive Vice President for Operations, José Lopez, indicates an earnest seriousness on behalf of Nestlé to take these issues and Oxfam’s call to action. However, it does not go far enough in making a strong commitment for women’s empowerment.

N'Dri Chantal Konan, age 70, separates the pulp from cocoa in Allahteresekro, Ivory Coast in January 2013. Photo: Peter DiCampo / Oxfam America

Firstly, if Nestlé were truly ready to do something for women, why not start with committing to the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles? This would go a long way toward showing Oxfam, consumers, and most importantly the women in Nestlé‘s supply chain that they are committed to tackling gender issues. In 2012, Nestlé did conduct an assessment of Nestlé’s cocoa supply chain with the Fair Labor Association in Cote d’Ivoire, as well as recent consultations on child labor. Their letter to Oxfam indicates a willingness to consider the recommendations on women in that report, but does not yet commit to knowing and showing what is happening to women more broadly in their cocoa supply chain by conducting a separate assessment.

Furthermore, we are not surprised to hear that members of the cooperatives involved in Nestlé‘s Cocoa Plan are almost all men. That is precisely the problem. Nestlé and other chocolate companies shouldn’t just accept this, but rather incentivize its suppliers to more actively include women in co-ops, and particularly in decision-making processes. Nestlé must be more active in targeting training for women farmers, recognizing the critical role they play in pre and post-harvest.

Nestlé indicated in the letter that they will come with a detailed plan in some weeks. We are looking forward to the reviewing the plan and the necessary actions.

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.

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.

Vicky Rateau is the GROW Campaign Manager at Oxfam America.

As a society, we get upset by food companies processing horsemeat to sell to us in the grocery store.  It’s troubling to customers; some don’t like the idea of not knowing what’s in our food.

Could we extend that same concern to the people who grow the food that end up in our refrigerators and cupboards? Could we get as enraged that food companies are looking the other way from land grabs in developing countries as families lose their farms or access to water?

There’s a range of injustices and violations that are often included in food products.

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is kicking off a new initiative today, Behind the Brands, to rank the policies of big food companies on important issues like treatment of workers and farmers, equality for women, land, clean water, climate change, and transparency. Oxfam has spent over a year pulling information together through research and engagement with food companies, so that for the first time, people will be able to see what the goes on behind products like M&Ms and Oreos. The main report contains a Scorecard that ranks the top 10 food companies, based on nearly 3000 data points that touch on issues rarely considered in mainstream sustainability ratings.  Oxfam plans to push hard for improvements in coming years, with campaigns planned in more than 12 countries, including the US, Mexico, Brazil, China and countries across Europe, which are major markets for these companies.

Behind the Brands complements the other parts of the GROW campaign (now in more than 45 countries) where Oxfam is focused on encouraging responsible government action on food and agriculture, as well as consumer behavior.  But governments and consumers aren’t enough. The big food companies with huge supply chains and enormous market power must also be part of the solution. They can help address the range of social and environmental challenges with food supply chains today. Ultimately the private sector’s share of the responsibility for basic human development based on ethical policy decisions should not be left to the competing forces of the marketplace.

The ten companies examined in Behind the Brands have aggressive sustainability efforts in some corners of the world, for some commodities, and in some sectors on sustainability issues. As the ten largest food companies, they should. But they have the ability to do more. Their supply chains employ millions of people in developing countries who grow and produce their products. They have the power to help tackle hunger, inequality, and vulnerability for the world’s poorest people. And at minimum, we agree they shouldn’t look the other way if land and water are being taken to grow the ingredients for their products, or if women are paid less than men for the same work.

Food companies know that women are the target market for their advertising; they put women front and center in their ads because in most households, women make the key buying decisions. But the same food companies often neglect the women who are the core producers of food products. And so, our first campaign action is focused on three of the top 10—Mars, Mondelez (formerly Kraft), and Nestle—for their failure to address inequality faced by women who grow cocoa used in their chocolate products.

No brand is too big to listen to its customers. We know consumers already think hard about the food they buy and want their purchases to make a difference or help others. This campaign is about showing big food companies that they can—and must—improve their policies and practices, and that as consumers we care.

We hope others will join us. In the comments, show us how you’re helping to spread the word.

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Over the next few weeks, Oxfam America’s Politics of Poverty blog will feature a series of posts that cover each of the Scorecard’s seven themes: workers, farmers, women, land, water, climate and transparency. Stay tuned!