Every summer, tens of thousands of seasonal workers migrate to agriculture production areas across Turkey. A majority of these workers are from the southeastern Turkey and they travel as family groups moving from crop to crop for six to eight months each year. Often, the children work alongside their migrant parents, contributing to the household income, but at the expense of their personal development.
The FLA outlines the findings of research to test interventions designed to protect workers in the supply chains of three affiliates. The evaluation, called a social impact assessment, included interventions executed by Nestlé and its two suppliers, Balsu and Olam, in the hazelnut supply chain in Turkey and identified the most effective at upholding workers’ rights.
The Fair Labor Association commissioned this study to explore the relationship between the procurement price and working conditions in hazelnut production in Turkey (with a special focus on child labor and forced labor), and review different actors’ roles in the supply chain, as part of the project “Piloting the USDA Guidelines for Eliminating Child Labor and Forced Labor in the Hazelnut Supply Chain in Turkey”.
In August 2017, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) conducted independent assessments in the Turkish hazelnut supply chain shared by three FLA affiliates – Nestlé, and its two strategic first-tier suppliers, Balsu and Olam Progida, which together account for 100 percent of Nestlé’s hazelnut volume in Turkey.
This report tells the story of Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, and its two hazelnut suppliers in Turkey, Olam and Balsu, as they pilot-tested the United States Department of Agriculture Guidelines for Eliminating Child Labor and Forced Labor in Agricultural Supply Chains (USDA Guidelines) in Turkey’s hazelnut supply chain. This project was a partnership between the three companies and the Fair Labor Association (FLA), funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL).
To document company capacity at the outset of the FLA's cooperative agreement with the US Department of Labor to pilot test USDA social sustainability guidelines in Turkey, the project team conducted a baseline survey of Nestlé, Olam-Progıda, and Balsu to assess their programs for combating child and forced labor.