Uplifting and empowering women with Fairtrade

Our partnership with Fairtrade helps to uplift women and create sustainable livelihoods

To coincide with Fairtrade Fortnight 2024, we are celebrating female empowerment in communities that benefit from Fairtrade, while also highlighting the need for greater gender equality.

Research shows that in Central American countries, such as Belize where most of our Fairtrade sugar is grown, women are typically paid a third less than their male counterparts¹. Further, less than half of women are part of the workforce² – versus, for example, 78 per cent in the UK³ – and just 52 per cent have access to a bank account⁴.

Working with Fairtrade, we are helping to correct this disparity. Since 2008, Tate & Lyle Fairtrade licensed sales in the UK have generated an estimated £32 million in Fairtrade Premium – an additional sum of money that goes to the Fairtrade Producer Organisations and is democratically decided how to invest, depending on the priorities of farmers.

Key initiatives funded by the brand’s Fairtrade Premium have included a programme focused on female empowerment by The Progressive Sugarcane Producers Association. This pilot project engaged women across four communities in Belize, providing them with essential skills in financial literacy, economic opportunities, and hands-on training. These women learned to manage their sugarcane revenues, explore small business entrepreneurship, and diversify their income sources.

As a result, they now have the potential to pursue new business opportunities, improve their farming operations, and build more successful family farming operations. On a day-to-day basis, these opportunities mean greater control over family income and expenses, increased confidence, and higher recognition for women in the sugarcane industry.

We have also collaborated with Erli Chan, Belize’s only female harvesting leader, who with the support of organisations in the region, is helping to generate more opportunities for women to enter the industry. Through her leadership, more women are gaining the opportunity to earn their own income and support their families.

The Fairtrade Premium means Producers’ associations can reinvest in local community businesses, including a female owned bakery and a fish farm, helping to boost employment opportunities for women and men alike in Belize.

Julia Clark, Director of Sugar Ethics at Tate & Lyle Sugars, said: “Gender equality is a topic that’s quite rightly part of conversations around working practices here in the UK, and this is no different in emerging economies around the world. What is different, is that often women in these regions face even greater challenges when it comes to accessing training and opportunities – something we’re using our work with Fairtrade to address.

“This Fairtrade Fortnight, we’re encouraging businesses and consumers alike to be the change and to consider how opting for Fairtrade certified products can create empowering opportunities for women.

“Through Fairtrade, we’re proud to ensure that our products not only taste good, but do good, creating value for female farmers and supporting better livelihoods for women and their families.”

Fairtrade Fortnight runs from 9^th – 22^nd September 2024, to find out more please visit https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/current-campaigns/fairtrade-fortnight/

1. _{Data sourced from Gender Pay Gap Report, published by Statista, 1st August 2024}
2. _{Data sourced from World Bank Gender Data Portal, report published 17th March 2024}
3. _{Data sourced from House of Commons Library Report, published 4th March 2024}
4. _{Data sourced from the World Bank Gender Data Portal, report published 17th March 2024}