Hazelnuts sourcing

Our three suppliers in Türkiye – Ofi, Balsu and Yavuz – all carry out a range of activities, interventions and collaborations designed to increase awareness of labor rights among workers in our hazelnut supply chain. They are also all engaged in projects that aim to improve working conditions and living conditions and reduce child labor risks. Our suppliers work with local authorities, universities, the Turkish National Employment Agency, the Agriculture Ministry and Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services to provide essential training.

Central to this work is mapping the seasonal migrant workforce and labor contractors to better understand the journeys they make, while providing training on labor rights related to wages, working hours, contracts, social security, and grievance and support procedures. Labor contractors are registered with the Turkish National Employment Agency and legal working contracts between farm owners, labor contractors and seasonal migrant workers are drawn up, in which workers’ rights are clearly stated. This marks a transformational change in the hazelnut supply chain.

There is a particular focus on preventing child labor risks, with a stipulation that workers’ dates of birth are provided during the registration process to help identify any underage workers, while training is also delivered on gender balance and women’s empowerment.

Workers are trained on the living conditions they are entitled to, such as shelter, hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. If needed, mobile toilets and showers are distributed to the living areas for seasonal migrant workers. Education in good agricultural practices is provided during harvest periods, and workers receive personal protection equipment.

We support our suppliers in running summer schools designed to help eliminate child labor risks from the hazelnut supply chain in Türkiye. The hazelnut harvest occurs during school holidays, and due to a lack of wider infrastructure and facilities, the children of workers often accompany their parents to farms, potentially increasing the risk that they might engage in work. To tackle this, we have worked with our suppliers to open summer schools that provide a safe space for children to go, where they can attend special educational and entertaining classes.

FLA assessments show that our efforts targeting child labor risks have been successful. In particular, villages with summer schools have seen a fall in the number of children engaged in child labor compared to those without.

As well as providing children with safe spaces and activities, summer schools raise awareness about child labor among teachers and local villagers. During the pandemic, our suppliers put measures in place to open safe spaces for smaller groups of children and sent them education kits with books and pencils.

In general, there is a lack of awareness of social and agricultural issues among people in the hazelnut production process, especially around gender-based employment relations and child labor risks. There is also a need to help people boost their income.

The Women on the Road program, led by our supplier, Ofi, has impacted hundreds of women and men, each year. The project aims to emphasize the important role women play in the supply chain and to empower them with training about their rights. Information focused on occupational health and safety rules, reproductive health rights, child rights, careers and business life.

Gender stereotypes are common among workers in our hazelnut supply chain, and when roles and responsibilities are guided by gender, rather than by skill and ambition, girls immediately find themselves disadvantaged in education and training.

Our supplier, Ofi, set up a project to provide a neutral environment in which girls could learn and play alongside boys, participating in traditionally male-dominated activities such as football and science fairs. The aim was to break down gender stereotypes and offer the children a safe space to prevent them from working on farms during the harvest.

With many hazelnut harvest workers being seasonal migrants, there is a need to help ensure they have adequate living conditions and access to clean drinking water. As part of our responsible hazelnut sourcing program with our supplier, Ofi, we have improved living conditions for workers.

In partnership with local village heads, we restored and expanded some buildings to act as living areas during the harvest for dozens of seasonal migrant workers. We also installed mobile toilets and showers, which provide access to sanitation to over a hundred seasonal workers and villagers during the harvesting season.