Price tool promotes living wages

A new reference price tool has been launched by Fairtrade International in September 2024. The tool, which is accessible from Fairtrade International website, is designed to make it easier for companies to find out what prices they need to pay to enable living incomes and living wages. 

Through an interactive map, users can look up Living Income Reference Prices by commodity or country. The Living Income Reference Price is the price that farmers need to be paid to be able to invest in sustainable farm practices and achieve a living income, when other key parameters such as viable farm size and sustainable yields are met. The users can also download a report which shows the factors that go into each price and how they were calculated.

Plus, there is a section which provides information about Fairtrade’s Living Income strategy that puts decent livelihoods as a central element of sustainability.

To date, Fairtrade has more than a dozen country- or region-specific Living Income Reference Prices developed through a robust research and validation process with farmers and other local industry experts. The products are cocoa, coffee, coconuts, cashews and mangoes, among others. Fairtrade also develops prices for companies, either based on a specific set of producers in a supply chain, or on a specific origin. The tool, which will be updated with new information as it becomes available, is accessible in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.

Living Wage Reference Prices will also be added to the tool, as Fairtrade launched its first such reference price for bananas in 2023.

(Fairtrade International/ile)

Visit the Faitrade Reference Prices Website