By Zablon Oyugi
On 28 April, the world observed the UN World Day for Safety and Health at Work which is equally critically important for agricultural workers globally because they are among the most vulnerable to occupational hazards, especially in the context of climate change.
Being an outdoor, physically demanding sector, agriculture expose workers to excessive heat, intense solar UV radiation, and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and storms—all of which are becoming more frequent and severe due to global warming.
These conditions increase the risk of heat-related illnesses, skin cancers, respiratory diseases, injuries, and even death. Additionally, agricultural workers face heightened exposure to agrochemicals like pesticides, which can cause poisoning, cancer, and a range of chronic health conditions also impacting their mental and social well-being.
In the wake of these glaring challenges, Ruth Ascencio, Regional Head Central America, Mexico & Caribbean at Bonsucro is pleased to share significant progress the company has achieved in worker protection within the sugarcane industry.
Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in Latin America’s food and agribusiness sectors—where she has guided agro-industrial companies in implementing management systems and improving operational standards—Ascencio outlines several key initiatives and improvements led by Bonsucro, including:
- Improved Working Conditions: Bonsucro’s certification process ensures that certified farms and mills provide safe working conditions, proper contracts, and access to safe drinking water for over 128,000 farm workers and 68,000 million workers. This includes a focus on reducing accident rates, with certified operators experiencing significant reductions over time (21% fewer accidents on certified farms and 17% fewer in certified mills reported in 2023-24 after five years of certification).
- Enhanced Labour Rights: The Bonsucro Production Standard Version 5.2emphasizes respect for labour rights, including zero tolerance for forced and child labour.
- Health and Safety Standards:Bonsucro’s Production Standard includes core indicators that require operators to identify, document, and communicate health and safety hazards to all workers.
- Wage Improvement Initiatives: Bonsucro is committed to improving wages for sugarcane workers.Although the latest Production Standard makes the living wage indicator aspirational, Bonsucro continues to support wage improvements through data collection tools and training programmes.
- Bonscuro Impact Fund projects– using income from the Bonsucro Credit Trading Platform, Bonsucro supports a number of projects around the world that focus on worker health and safety and leverage technology to drive impact. These include:
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- Driving decent work and safer working conditions for sugarcane farmers in Eswatini through technology focuses on delivering workshops to small-scale farm workers on health and safety at work, grievance mechanisms and sustainable practices. They use the Diginex platform, a worker survey tool that allows workers to provide confidential and anonymous feedback on critical issues which in turn provides input for reports to demonstrate trends and concerns that need to be addressed.
- Using digital tools and multi-stakeholder engagement to improve human rights due diligence is a project that addresses the high prevalence of forced labour and gaps in respecting migrant workers’ rights. To tackle the root causes of these issues, the project partners use impact tech and participatory worker engagement models with vulnerable migrant workers and lower tier suppliers to enhance transparency and strengthen Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) systems. One outcome of this project is the policy brief, outlining key challenges faced by workers, including migrant workers, and recommendations for ethical recruitment and employment.
Projects with focus on workers but not digital:
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- Protecting workers in a changing climate in Diageo’s rum supply chain focuses on heat stress faced by sugarcane workers. The project looks at the harvesting and milling of sugarcane as well as the organisational management, employing La Isla Network’s Rest-Share-Hydration-Sanitation approach to reduce the impact of heat stress. At Ingenio San Antonio in Nicaragua this approach has reduced heat-driven acute kidney hospitalisations of workers by 94%.
- Human Rights Due Diligence toolkit for sugarcane mills project will develop and implement a systematic approach to embed Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) in sugarcane mills’ own operations, their suppliers and service providers based in the southeast and northeast of Brazil. This will result in practical resources and guidance to identify and address real and potential human rights impacts in the supply chain.
“As the world marks the UN World Day for Safety and Health at Work, Bonsucro reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that every agricultural worker in the sugarcane sector enjoys a safe, healthy, and dignified working environment. Through our Production Standard, we require all operators to identify, assess, and manage health and safety risks—including heat stress, chemical exposure, and workplace injuries—while promoting respect for labour rights and the well-being of all workers. Today, we call on our members and partners to join us in strengthening protections and raising standards, so that no worker’s health or safety is compromised in the pursuit of sustainable sugarcane production,” said Ascencio.
