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28 Oct 2008
Unit:
LEI
 At the request of the Flemish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, LEI has shed light on the sustainability of the agricultural trade between Belgium and four developing countries. The aim of the study was to map out the economic, social and environmental effects for these countries of the production of food imported into Belgium. The study focuses on five products (bananas, cocoa, coffee, soya and tea) and four countries (Brazil, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire and Tanzania).
The study revealed that production and trade can be labelled as unsustainable in Brazil and Costa Rica in particular due to the ecological effects relating to biodiversity, land use, pesticide use and water consumption. The ecological effects of soya production in Brazil are currently also explicitly highlighted in the Round Table on Responsible Soy. The relatively high level of use of pesticides in the banana sector - due to the susceptibility to fungal diseases - is not unknown either.
In Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania, it is chiefly the socio-economic factors - income from slave labour and child labour - that are important. The use of child labour in the cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire has been highlighted before. The most surprising outcome was the manner in which use is made of child labour in coffee and tea production in Tanzania. Children are then exposed to very dangerous forms of labour, although it should be noted that it is not yet clear whether this is a widespread problem or isolated incidences.
Report (only in Dutch)
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