Group confirms serious grievances in Brazil: Syngenta subsidiary has been profiting from forced labor for years

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Syngenta has been criticized repeatedly. Pesticides are often the cause. What many people don’t know is that the pesticide manufacturer is also involved in the coffee business. Investigations are now revealing complaints.

The group operates Syngenta Proteção de kultivos in Brazil. This company also owns the subsidiary Nutrade Comercial Exportadora, which supplies coffee to various brands. Other brands include the Nucoffee brand, also owned by Syngenta, and Sucafina, headquartered in Geneva.

According to the investigation, Brazilian subsidiary Nutrade is said to have purchased coffee from Brazilian farms where business was not going well. As Blick knows, this is something the Corporate Responsibility Coalition has explored in collaboration with the WAV research community.

No access to toilets or water

Labor exploitation and forced labor; these are allegations against six farms in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Between 2018 and 2022, approximately 125 workers were rescued from slavery-like conditions. Some had no employment contracts and were poorly paid, even if they received regular salaries. The majority were housed in the most precarious conditions, without access to toilets or clean drinking water. The youngest workers were 13 years old. Investigation shows that one of the owners of such a farm has been accused of human trafficking.

However, Syngenta cannot be held responsible for this. “Syngenta can now sell coffee produced using forced labor without consequences and doesn’t even have to react when people on the plantations are freed from slavery-like working conditions by Brazilian authorities. This is very problematic,” says former National Assembly Member Dominique de Buman (67, centre), who sits on the board of the Corporate Responsibility Coalition.

Because Syngenta’s origins are in Switzerland. The company was founded as a joint venture between Novartis and Astra Zeneca. The company has been in Chinese hands since 2017. The headquarters is still in Basel.

New initiative planned

Therefore, De Buman criticizes: “Switzerland finally needs an effective corporate liability law, as many neighboring countries in Europe have already implemented.” To this end, the coalition plans to launch a new corporate responsibility initiative, as it has been known since the end of 2023. Due to the majority, the first attempt failed. The full content of the second initiative will be known as soon as the EU sets its guidelines.

Syngenta has already taken action: “Nutrade has in the past taken immediate action to investigate allegations of slavery-like working conditions on coffee farms in Brazil and has stopped working with suppliers who were found to be violating regulations and where labor exploitation and forced labor were widespread. “location” on request, a spokesman said.

Additionally, Nutrade constantly and proactively monitors the list of farmers on the ministry’s blacklist to ensure that the company does not accept supplies from these farmers.

Blick also contacted coffee company Sucafina, which purchases coffee from Nutrade, about the allegations. The company had no comment by press time.

Source :Blick