Archer Daniels Midland Response Re Alleged Child Labour in Its Supply Chain

Archer Daniels Midland response re alleged child labour in its supply chain

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Archer Daniels Midlandto respond to the following item:

- "Bloody Valentine: Child Slavery in Ivory Coast's Cocoa Fields",Tom Philpott, Mother Jones, 14 Feb 2012

In response,Archer Daniels Midlandsent the following statement:

23 Feb 2012

ADM condemns the exploitation of legally underage workers or forced labor and will not knowingly use suppliers who employ such workers or labor.

Our contracts in West Africa require suppliers to guarantee that the cocoa beans they provide were produced under working conditions consistent with all local labor regulations, including those related to child labor. If we discover that a supplier has misrepresented the source of their cocoa bean supply, we will terminate our contract with that supplier.

ADM and the global chocolate industry have been actively working to prevent the exposure of children to hazardous labor practices and eliminate the worst forms of child labor. While we are not growers of cocoa, ADM works with others along the cocoa supply chain – including grower cooperatives, NGOs, industry partners and governments – to help address this issue and promote social and economic development in cocoa farming communities. We take our efforts seriously and actively develop, support and fund several programs to help eliminate the worst forms of child labor:

• The ADM Technical Training Program educates cocoa growers about labor practices, farm safety, HIV/AIDS prevention, operational transparency and product quality.

• ADM’s Socially & Environmentally Responsible Agriculture Practices (SERAP) Program rewards West African cooperatives committed to implementing sustainable practices. This program seeks to foster collaboration among growers as they work to address social and environmental issues, including growing and labor issues.

• ADM is a partner in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture’s Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) Farmer Field Schools to educate thousands of cocoa farmers about labor standards, business practices and farming methods.

• ADM joined with the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several industry peers to launch a $40 million program to improve the livelihoods of approximately 200,000 cocoa farming families in western Africa.

• ADM is a member of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a Swiss foundation created to combat the worst forms of child labor in cocoa production. And, our company is participating in the United States Department of Labor’s Framework of Action to Support Implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol. Through these efforts, the governments of Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and the United States – along with representatives of the global chocolate and cocoa industry – have pledged to continue the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) in West Africa and to work with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to develop a coordinated approach to eliminating the worst forms of child labor.

ADM believes that by working with a variety of organizations along the cocoa supply chain, we can help eliminate the worst forms of child labor and improve the lives of cocoa farming families and the communities in which they live.