Fair Food Program reaches major landmark: Over $50 million in Fair Food Premium — aka the “Penny per Pound” — has been paid by Participating Buyers to improve farmworkers’ income on participating farms.
2024 SOTP: “The [compliance] data demonstrates that Participating Growers across the Program have developed a deep commitment to the FFP’s joint complaint resolution process, driven by the recognition that workers frequently have valuable insight into workplace practices and related risks.”
In part 2 of our series on the release of the 2024 Fair Food Program State of the Program report, we’re going to focus on what truly sets the FFP apart in agriculture: Results. Concrete results.
[To download the 2024 SOTP report in its entirety, click here!]
Distinct from any other social certification program in the world today, the foundation of the FFP is rooted in the CIW’s legally binding agreements with Participating Buyers, some of the world’s largest corporations that agree to purchase preferentially from farms that meet the standards required by the Fair Food Code of Conduct — and to suspend purchases from farms that are suspended from the Program — as verified by the Program’s dedicated monitoring organization, the Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC). Farms that are suspended from the Program for non-compliance cannot sell their product to Participating Buyers during the suspension period and until corrective actions are implemented and verified through a re-entry audit.
Apart from the Program’s purchasing requirements, the Fair Food Premium paid by buyers also helps to supplement wages unduly suppressed by market pressure. Motivated by these market incentives, Participating Growers agree to implement the Fair Food Code of Conduct on their farms, to refrain from intimidation or retaliation against workers who use the Program’s complaint mechanism, to cooperate with complaint investigations and audits by the FFSC, and to distribute the Fair Food Premium to their workers.
The FFP’s monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are also unique and designed to ensure that the Program’s standards are fully implemented on all participating farms. Based on their own experiences as workers, CIW leaders understood that multiple interconnected mechanisms would be necessary to establish the fullest visibility possible into Participating Growers’ operations and to ensure compliance with the Program’s standards. Those mechanisms include a Code of Conduct that is based on workers’ priorities and experiences in the workplace; worker‑to‑worker education on their rights and responsibilities under Code that prepares workers to serve as frontline monitors of their own rights; a 24/7 complaint investigation and resolution process where workers can report violations free from the fear of retaliation; and regular, comprehensive farm audits. These elements, none of which is sufficient alone, are all backed by the Program’s market-based incentives and work in coordination to protect workers from exploitation and provide a work environment of respect and dignity.
Today, we want to share just how transformative the FFP has been for the tens of thousands of farmworkers on participating farms, using both qualitative and quantitative measures to demonstrate the concrete changes forged on participating farms — owing much, as always, to the unique partnership with Participating Growers at the heart of the Fair Food Program.
As detailed in this report, farmworkers, growers, and buyers have all lauded the FFP’s best-in-class protections. In the words of one worker speaking with FFSC auditors, “We are comfortable, now we can speak [up] without fear [of retaliation].” Another said simply, “You motivate me to have no fear.”
But workers are not alone in seeing the extraordinary value of the FFP on participating farms. Reflecting on the Program, and the history of abuse in the agricultural industry, Gwen Cameron, co-owner of FFP partner farm Rancho Durazno in Palisade, CO, shared, “I hope those types of abuses are not happening, but the point is, we don’t know. That’s what [this Program] is for.” Jon Esformes, CEO of Sunripe Certified Brands and the first grower to join the Fair Food Program in 2010, said: “There was no question in my mind that bad things were happening in agriculture and on farms, not just my own, but farms across the country – things that I did not know about and had no mechanism to find out about. This gave me the tool.”
Meanwhile Theresa Chester, Director of Purchasing at Bon Appétit, a Participating Buyer in the Program, told a reporter from the Miami Herald: “Through our purchasing powers and our purchasing orders that go to the program, the issue of workers’ rights is brought to that same level of food safety… Respect for workers is just as important as the food safety we bring to the table. It brings us peace of mind that our supply chain is free of those typical abuses.”
As for the quantitative side of the story, we are including here below a section from the SOTP report describing how the FFSC collects and analyzes the data that measures the FFP’s real life impact, followed by several landmark achievements in overall compliance, Fair Food Premium Pay, and speed within the FFP’s groundbreaking complaint resolution system:
Enforcement Results Overview
Throughout the Fair Food Program’s fourteen seasons of implementation, FFSC has maintained a vast database comprising detailed records of its monitoring efforts, tracking data from all audits and complaint investigations. For each standard included in the Fair Food Code of Conduct (see Appendix A), FFSC grades both individual grower performance and Program-wide averages, from 0 to 100, based on weighted metrics developed to gauge compliance. This mapping provides an accurate reflection of trends and enforcement effectiveness. Qualitative feedback from workers and growers has also provided powerful insight into the Program’s impact on working conditions, workplace culture, and the well-being of farmworkers and their families. The following pages provide a more in-depth review of the implementation of FFP standards and the impact of those standards on the labor practices of Participating Growers over time.
Specifically, this section documents the progress made, through audit corrective actions and complaint resolutions, in eliminating systemic issues that have long resulted in violations of the rights of agricultural workers, as well as in addressing individual grievances.
Overall trends in the data are clear. In a few short years, with its combination of worker-led identification of Code violations, third-party investigations and audits, and market-backed enforcement, the Fair Food Program had reshaped the practices of the Florida tomato industry, taking it from “ground zero for modern-day slavery,” to what human rights experts recognize as “the best working environment in American agriculture.” Similarly, the data show that as the Program expands to new Participating Growers across many new states and crops, compliance with FFP requirements improves dramatically in the first few years as effective compliance systems are established. After five or six years, most minor non-compliances are also prevented through ongoing improvements of Participating Growers’ systems and practices. Over time, the types of abuses that are still so prevalent outside the FFP are remedied – and ultimately prevented – by worker-led human rights enforcement.
For workers employed at Fair Food Program farms – the mothers who are no longer asked to leave their dignity at the farm gate just to feed their families, or the fathers who no longer fear violence or losing their jobs for complaining about unsafe conditions or missing pay – the progress brought by the FFP is personal and profound.
This culture of compliance is captured by the graphic, included below, which shows that the longer a farm participates in the FFP, the fewer code violations occur on that farm. And as the compliance scores on the Y-Axis clearly demonstrate, over time the FFP’s own worker-drafted Code of Conduct becomes internalized as part of the daily business operations of the farm, and not merely an external force occasionally interjecting itself into the farm’s business in order to certify the farm again, as is often the case in traditional Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. After farms come into the FFP, and once they make it past the initial adjustment period, compliance remains above 90%.
We also want to highlight the extraordinary landmark that, as of the 2023-2024 season, the Fair Food Premium — which many in the Fair Food Nation may know as the “Penny per Pound” — has now surpassed $50 million paid to help improve farmworkers’ income on participating farms since the Program began. Before Taco Bell signed the first-ever Fair Food Agreement, the idea of a multinational corporation committing to paying a wage bonus to the workers at the bottom of its supply chain was quite simply unheard of. But after years of campaigning and collaboration, that’s now business as usual in the Fair Food Program.
Finally, we want to bring your attention to another feature unique to the Fair Food Program: Speed.
Outside the FFP, the precious few avenues available to farmworkers to lodge complaints often move at a glacial pace, dragging on for months — and, more often than not, years — before finally resolving themselves long after the harvest season has ended and the workers have moved on. On top of that, the longer problems are allowed to persist, the more likely they are to grow into something worse, creating an even more abusive or exploitative work environment. In stark contrast, the FFP’s human rights investigators recognize the need to quickly resolve each and every matter brought to them in order to maintain the trust of all workers in the Program and the integrity of the Program on the participating farm, and the numbers reflect that dedication to timeliness. According to the SOTP, a breathtaking 54% of all cases reported to investigators are resolved within two weeks, with a full 73% resolved within a month.
Together these results, measured by first-hand accounts of farmworkers themselves and the overall data collected by the FFSC over 15 year in operation, show the Fair Food difference in the fields.
We’re excited to share more insights into the FFP and the State of the Program report, so stay tuned next week for part 3!