Ensuring decent work across food systems
Decent Work For Equitable Food Systems Coalition
Ensuring decent work across food systems
INSTIGATING CHANGE
About the
Coalition
Ensuring equitable livelihoods for the most vulnerable
The Decent Work for Equitable Food Systems Coalition is a member-led organisation that galvanizes the global community to create more equitable livelihoods for those working in food systems.
It was launched jointly by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and CARE International. Together with its members, the Coalition applies its respected thought leadership and effective advocacy to generate constructive solutions towards these goals.
Food system workers play a critical role in feeding the world. However, most of them regularly face high levels of working poverty, chronic food insecurity, poor health and safety conditions, and lack of labour and social protection. In many countries, they experience the highest incidence of poverty and often struggle to feed themselves and their families.
The recent economic and social crises have exposed the fragility of our food systems, posing existential threats to businesses and exacerbating the decent work deficits endured by agri-food workers. Addressing these deficits and building just and sustainable workplaces is key for the sustainable and human-centered transformation of food systems.
We are working with governments, multilateral organisations, workers’ and employers’ organizations, civil society, academia, and the private sector to make progress on this agenda.
The Decent Work for Equitable Food Systems Coalition is a member-led organisation that galvanizes the global community to create more equitable livelihoods for those working in food systems.
It was launched jointly by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and CARE International. Together with its members, the Coalition applies its respected thought leadership and effective advocacy to generate constructive solutions towards these goals.
Food system workers play a critical role in feeding the world. However, most of them regularly face high levels of working poverty, chronic food insecurity, poor health and safety conditions, and lack of labour and social protection. In many countries, they experience the highest incidence of poverty and often struggle to feed themselves and their families.
The recent economic and social crises have exposed the fragility of our food systems, posing existential threats to businesses and exacerbating the decent work deficits endured by agri-food workers. Addressing these deficits and building just and sustainable workplaces is key for the sustainable and human-centred transformation of food systems.
We are working with governments, multilateral organisations, workers’ and employers’ organizations, civil society, academia, and the private sector to make progress on this agenda.
Conflict, climate change, and crises have exposed the fragility of our food systems and exacerbated the decent work deficits endured by agri-food workers. We now have the chance to rethink our traditional approaches and develop effective strategies to design just and sustainable workplaces.
The Coalition of Action on Decent work for Equitable Food Systems is committed to the goal of ensuring economic and social justice and the right to adequate and nutritious food through decent work for all food systems workers.
The Coalition aims to pursue its goal by advancing equitable livelihoods by promoting labour and human rights, acknowledging the role of increasing opportunities for decent and productive employment within the agri-food sector, including achieving 100% living incomes and wages.
THE CHALLENGE
Coalition priority areas
Coalition priority areas
Thirteen percent of all adult forced labour exploitation, involving 2.1 million people, and 70 percent of all child labour, involving 112 million children, occurs in agriculture.
Agricultural employment is often associated with low labour productivity, low earnings and poor working conditions. Nearly two-thirds of all the working extreme poor are employed in agriculture.
Agricultural workers often lack adequate legislative protection and mechanisms for the promotion of their collective voice. Only 9 per cent of workers in food systems belong to a trade union, significantly below the average of 17.6 percent for all employees.
Worldwide, more than 4 billion people still lack any social protection. Agricultural workers and rural populations are disproportionately affected by the absence or inadequacy of social protection.
A quarter of those employed in the agricultural sector are in extreme poverty. In some countries, agricultural workers are excluded from minimum wage protection. Across countries where a minimum wage is implemented, on average 52 per cent of key food systems employees are paid below that wage.
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