Harvesting the Future

FLA’s flagship project, Harvesting the Future (HTF), seeks to improve human rights and labor conditions of agricultural workers and their families in our project partners’ supply chains. HTF initiatives take place across Türkiye, Egypt, and India, establishing strong human rights due diligence practices around child protection and responsible recruitment.

To accomplish this, FLA brings together companies, their suppliers, civil society organizations, and governments (both local and national) that want to support meaningful and sustainable change for workers but are limited in creating large scale impact on their own. This enables us to improve labor conditions holistically as we target different leverage points along a supply chain and take advantage of each partner’s complementary strengths.

Each HTF initiative is tailored to address the unique needs of workers in specific agricultural commodities and regions.

Focus areas

Key focus areas for HTF initiatives include:

• Human rights due diligence: Implementing supply chain transparency through village farmer and worker mapping; monitoring farm-level working conditions; and referring workers to grievance mechanisms
• Child protection: Monitoring for, identifying, and remediating child labor on farms; opening schools; and providing training and awareness campaigns to parents and employers
• Responsible recruitment: Training farmers and labor intermediaries, reducing involuntary overtime, providing workers with access to remedy any violations
• Occupational health and safety: Ensuring safe working conditions on farms; providing educational trainings to workers and access to protective equipment
• Fair compensation: Ensuring workers receive legal wages; helping workers register for social protection services; and securing responsible procurement prices
• Knowledge building: Supporting local awareness of fair labor practices through village-level committees, trainings, and other capacity building activities

Project achievements

Since launching in 2019, HTF has expanded to 3 different countries and 11 commodities. Our more than 100 private sector partners include 47 brands, 7 fragrance houses, and 37 suppliers/producers. In addition, we work with 35 governmental partners and 26 NGOs, including more than 10 national advisors and 2 MSIs.

We are proud to have made significant strides in empowering workers. Key successes include:

• 12,400 men, women, and children received health care services
• 2,600 workers and 2,400 farmers and labor intermediaries attended sessions on decent work and child labor
• 3,000 farms have been monitored, covering 22,000+ workers and their children
• School enrollment rates for children increased to 84% as part of HTF Türkiye
• 200 individuals attended financial literacy workshops; 260 received support securing livelihood and income generation resources
• 30 national government ministries and agencies participate in ongoing collaborations with HTF stakeholders to improve working conditions

For more information about this project, email bkugu@fairlabor.org