Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Mr. Ruud Bronkhorst

Member since
Organization: InfoBridge Foundation
Country: Netherlands
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:

Methodology of Fair Prices

I am a retired development economist who worked as staff member and as a consultant with several national and international organizations, such as FAO, WFP, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, and several NGOs.
In 2008 I joined InfoBridge Foundation and worked on food security, rural development, living income and Fair Prices.
I wrote several articles and papers on Food aid and on Fair Prices, that can be found at https://www.infobridge.org/index.php/resources/1-fair-prices/9-living-income-fair-price-method?download=43:fair-prices-based-on-human-rights-2023&start=20. In 2020 my book on
Fair Prices was published ‘The Economics of Human Rights: Using the Living Income / Fair Price Approach to Combat Poverty’, followed in 2022 by a book chapter ‘Fair-trade coffee: how fair is fair?' in "Climate-smart production of coffee - Improving social and environmental sustainability".

This member contributed to:

    • Please find attached:

      The Form on the experiences;

      An article in Sociology and Anthropology "Fair Prices to Achieve a Living Income for Small Farmers and Its Relation to Local Food Purchase Programs"; 

      "Fair Producer Prices", Paper to the 93rd Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society (AES), University of Warwick, April 2019, and

      The paper that is about a different way of calculation in the production chain and is taken from my book ‘The Economics of Human Rights: Using the Living Income/Fair Price Approach to Combat Poverty’.

      Kind regards,

      Ruud Bronkhorst

       

      Title of your submission

      Fair Prices

      Geographical coverage

      Global

       

      Country(ies)/ Region(s) covered by your submission

       

      Contact person

      Name: Ruud Bronkhorst

      Organization: InfoBridge Foundation www.infobridge.org

      Email address: [email protected]

       

       

      ☐  Government

      ☐  UN organization

      ☒  Civil Society / NGO

      ☐  Private Sector

      ☒  Academia

      ☐  Donor

      ☐  Other (specify)

      Awareness of the

      Right to Food Guidelines and

      CFS policy agreements

       

       

      How did you become aware of the Right to Food Guidelines (e.g., CFS meeting or event, other UN Organizations, internet, colleagues, government, civil society organization)?

      FAO, government

       

      Have you taken any actions to make the Right to Food Guidelines known to your colleagues, partners or other stakeholders?

       

      ☐ No

      ☒ Yes

       

      Not exactly the Right to Food Guidelines, but the Human Right to Adequate Food. This basic human right is the basis of my work and publications about ‘fair’ prices.

       

      What would you recommend to Member States, UN Agencies and /or other stakeholders to make the Right to Food Guidelines more widely known?

      All Member States, UN Agencies and/or other stakeholders should be reminded of the fact that the Right to Food is a legally binding right, following articles 23 and 25 of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, adopted by the United Nations, and is guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

       

      Use of the

      Right to Food Guidelines

      The Right to Food has been stressed during lectures and trainings.

       

      Have your say where it matters!

       

      (i) Experiences and good practices

      • Sufficient income by payment of Living Wages and Living Income, made possible though the payment of Fair Prices, make the realization of the right to food for everyone possible, leading to less hunger, less child labor, and better education and health for all.

       

      (ii) Gaps, constraints and challenges

      • Small producers often do not get sufficiently paid for their products, meaning that they cannot pay their laborers a Living Wage.  In agriculture this results in food insecurity for both farmers and agricultural laborers, as well as child labor.
      • Companies are reluctant to pay Living Wages to their workers, and governments are reluctant to impose this obligation on companies, be it by fear of losing income, lack of legislation or by the impossibility to put their legislation into force.
      • The connection between the payment of fair prices to small, marginal farmers and climate change, is not sufficiently recognized. In order to adapt to changes in climate, farmers must have sufficient income to be able to pay for the investments needed to change to other crops and/or ways of production. Sufficient income to cover the needs of adequate food and investment costs are essential to prevent small farmers to pay the toll for climate change.

       

      (iii) Lessons learned and suggested recommendations

      - Lessons learned

         - In my report of 2006 ‘Effects of structural food aid in the form of local purchase and sales of rice on rural development’ (https://infobridge.org),  I mention that farmers in Burkina Faso who sold to WFP, told that they were paid much later, and the food was bought at the current market price, which was insufficient for them. Fortunately WFP has adjusted its policies since then.

       

      Recommendations

      1. Producers should receive a ‘fair’ price for their products. This implies that we must get rid of the notion that the market price is the right price. We must work towards a system where basic human rights are the basis for prices. One of the means to do so is intervention in the production chain to cut out any excessive profits, because that way a raise in workers wages does not lead to much higher consumer prices. On the whole it asks for a serious review of the current price system.
      2. Payment of Living Wages to workers and the possibility for producers to earn a Living Income by the payment of Fair Prices.
      3. Pression on states and companies to apply the Right to Food Guidelines.
      4. Make the subject of fair prices to small farmers an important discussion point in climate discussions by stressing the need for small farmers to have sufficient income to achieve both food security and be able to make the necessary investments to adjust to climate change.

       

       

       

      (iv) Concrete plans

      - In Europe the European Commission has drafted a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) Directive that establishes a corporate due diligence duty. The core elements of this duty are identifying, bringing to an end, preventing, mitigating and accounting for negative human rights and environmental impacts in the company’s own operations, their subsidiaries and their value chains.

      -  Application of  Living Income Reference Prices:

      * Fairtrade Int. https://www.fairtrade.net/issue/living-income-reference-prices

       * GIZ (Krain Eberhard, John Osei Gyimah, Ignatius Pumpuni, Nana Yaw Kwapong-Akuffo and Martin Kuntze-Fechner : ‘Analysis and Report of a Baseline Study for a Living Income (and Other Benchmarks) in Cashew- and Cocoa-Growing Regions of Ghana’), GIZ, 2021

      * Cocoa Barometer 2022 https://cocoabarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Cocoa-Barometer-2022.pdf

       

      Link(s) to specific references

      https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/doing-business-eu/corporate-sustainability-due-diligence_en

       

       

      Link(s) to additional information

       

       

       

       

       

      See the attachments: