Starbucks-certified coffee plantation in Brazil uses slave-like labor
Posted by Josh Taylor / September 26, 2018
Starbucks has formed partnerships with coffee plantations in order to ensure fair trade, equitable hiring practices, and fair treatment among plantation workers. But a recent discovery at a Brazilian plantation has thrown Starbuck’s laudable goals into question. “But investigators have found that laborers on the farm’s coffee plantations were working under degrading conditions and living in substandard housing without sewerage or drinking water. A Ministry of Labor team inspection conducted at the site rescued 18 rural workers in conditions analogous to slavery.”
Full story at Mongabay.
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The thoughts of a partnership that Starbucks envisaged is appealing, and it seems to be one based on ecological considerations. However, where it lacks is in its inability to deliver on monitoring of the ecology. A goal as lofty as the one envisaged by Starbucks will forever need control and perhaps they chose to leave it to their partners in Brazil.