Assessing Harvesting the Future

A study by the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights

Harvesting The Future (HTF) is an innovative initiative of FLA that addresses systemic human and labor rights challenges in global agriculture supply chains. Piloted in Türkiye and expanded to Egypt and India, HTF addresses the vulnerabilities of seasonal migrant workers and their families, focusing on child protection and responsible recruitment across multiple agricultural commodities and geographies.  

The Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights (GCBHR) at the University of Geneva conducted this study, commissioned by FLA, to assess HTF based on interviews with partners and mid-project reports. The study considers whether the HTF model can effectively support human rights due diligence in upstream supply chains, focusing on the initiative’s design and model, the role of key stakeholders, and its sustainability beyond FLA’s involvement. It captures the key factors that contribute to HTF’s achievements as well as the areas needing improvement, based on partner perspectives.  

The study concludes that HTF’s approach is well-suited to address the structural human and labor rights challenges that seasonal migrant workers face when they travel to work on a single commodity or multiple commodities in the same year.  

Key findings from this report include:  

• The HTF model offers a structured way for collectively addressing systemic human and labor rights challenges faced by seasonal migrant workers in agriculture, with evidence of positive impacts for workers and improved capacity among suppliers and labor intermediaries. 
• The practical implementation of HTF remains challenging, and areas of improvement include maintaining long-term commitment from coalition partners and systematically capturing adequate data on the impact on seasonal migrant workers. 
• Strengthening the capacity of key stakeholders – including suppliers, labor intermediaries, and government institutions – is the focus of HTF’s current activities and essential for ensuring locally driven progress toward labor rights compliance. For long-term continuity, multinational brands can amplify HTF’s impact by aligning their internal management systems with the HTF framework that is based on FLA’s Fair Labor Standards.