RESAFRA Programme
Name of the project: RESAFRA Programme
Call for proposals theme: Human rights and decent work
Project lead: Imaflora
Co-leads: Solidaridad Latinoamérica, Raízen
Grant awarded: £50,000
Project budget: £107,687
Photo at the top of the page: Imaflora
Imaflora, the Institute of Agricultural and Forest Management and Certification, is a Brazilian NGO dedicated to driving socio-environmental change in forestry and agriculture. It works to influence production chains, shape public policies, and promote sustainable land use models. Imaflora aims to help reduce deforestation, conserve forests, and improve the quality of life of communities in protected areas.
The project is run in partnership with Raízen, one of the world’s leading sugarcane processing companies, and Solidaridad, an international civil society organisation developing solutions to make agricultural value chains more sustainable and inclusive. In South America, Solidaridad currently operates projects to promote the adoption of good practices in sugarcane in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras.
Purpose of the project
The RESAFRA Programme aims to ensure the protection of human rights and decent working conditions for rural workers hired by sugarcane producers through subcontracting companies.
To achieve this, the programme offers technical assistance to develop these subcontracting companies, helping them improve their quality of service provided and financial management processes. Crucially, it supports the adoption of ethical hiring and human resources practices that guarantee dignified working conditions while complying with Brazilian labour legislation.
The project partners will:
- Develop a scalable and replicable technical advisory model, and a model for verifying and certifying companies offering outsourced rural labour;
- Create the RESAFRA Standard, in line with Brazilian legislation and the Bonsucro Production Standard v5.2.
- Engage with producers, buyers, and service providers on human rights and labour regulations.
- Support subcontractors in implementing and complying with the RESAFRA Standard.
Location
The project will be implemented in the south-central region of Brazil, specifically in the regions of Piracicaba and Ribeirão Preto. These areas face one of the most pressing challenges in the sugarcane industry: inadequate working conditions in rural areas, particularly within labour-intensive activities such as sugarcane planting and harvesting.
Workers in these sectors are often hired under precarious conditions, with little or no guarantee of their rights, resulting in high risks to their health, wellbeing, and remuneration. These issues not only affect the workers directly but also threaten the long-term sustainability of the sector.
Why this project?
The Bonsucro Impact Fund supports collaborative, scalable and innovative projects that accelerate sustainable sugarcane production.
Scalability
With support from the BIF, the programme will be able to expand for 30 audited rural service providers, with the aim to certify 25 of them.
The issues that this project addresses affect all production chains in Brazil, not just sugarcane. Currently, it’s impossible to ensure workers’ rights in companies that provide rural services.
The model will be replicable for other commodity chains, such as orange and coffee, and will have potential for global scalability.
Innovation
This project goes beyond compliance; it will give competitive advantages to companies that ensure safe and fair working conditions for rural workers. As more companies adopt these practices, pressure will increase on mills and producers who continue to allow non-compliance with labour legislation. This will result in market pressure for legal compliance and improvement of rural service providers.
In this sense, the project will pave the way for a self-sustaining ecosystem, connecting companies and other actors in the value chain through direct investments in the project.
Sustainability
To ensure the project’s continuity, RESAFRA will work with companies to map new providers who need training to implement best practices, covering other commodities such as forestry, coffee, and citrus.
The validity of RESAFRA certification will be time-bound; service providers will be audited annually to have their certification renewed. This will involve an additional remote audit, requesting documents and evidence.
Additionally, an in-person follow-up audit will be conducted, which will involve interviews with workers and company representatives, assessing the service delivery structures, and reviewing documentation.
This due diligence will help ensure the outcomes are maintained after the project ends.
Expected outcomes
The project aims to support 30 rural service providers employing more than 600 workers for 400 sugarcane suppliers and supplying approximately 20 mills in the central-south region of Brazil over a two-year period.-
- Improvements to the way service providers hire and treat rural workers through technical assistance and training.
- A fairer work environment, with protection of workers’ rights and decent working conditions.
- Verification and certification of service providers according to project guidelines.
Bonsucro Impact Fund
The Bonsucro Impact Fund invests in impact projects that address critical sustainability challenges in the sugarcane sector.
The Bonsucro Impact Funds uses income from the sale of Credits through the Bonsucro Credit Trading Platform.
All trades are charged a transaction fee, around 50% of which is invested into the Bonsucro Impact Fund.
Learn more about the Fund and check for grants available here.
Bonsucro Credit Trading
By purchasing Bonsucro credits for sugarcane, ethanol, molasses and raw sugar, companies support impact projects on the ground through the Bonsucro Impact Fund.
