Respecting rights of small-scale farming workers

Description

Respecting the rights of small-scale farming workers involves ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions, and access to social protections. This strategy requires enforcing labor laws, supporting collective bargaining, and providing education on workers’ rights. Practical actions include monitoring compliance, addressing discrimination, and enabling grievance mechanisms. By remedying exploitation and insecurity, this approach empowers workers, improves livelihoods, and promotes sustainable agricultural development, directly addressing systemic inequities in rural labor markets.

Implementation

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

Agenda 21 recommends recognizing the rights of small-scale fishworkers and the special situation of indigenous people and local communities, including their rights to utilization and protection of their habitat on a sustainable basis.