Risk of forced labour embedded in the US fruit and vegetable supply

Blackstone, Nicole Tichenor; Norris, Catherine Benoit; Robbins, Tali; Jackson, Bethany; Decker Sparks, Jessica L

Abstract

Sustainable food consumption studies have largely focused on promoting human health within ecological limits. Less attention has been paid to social sustainability, in part because of limited data and models. Globally, agriculture has one of the highest incidences of forced labour, with exploitative conditions enabled by low margins, domestic labour scarcity, inadequate legal protections for workers and high labour requirements. Here we assess the forced labour risk embedded in the US retail supply of fruits and vegetables using distinct datasets and a new forced labour risk scoring method. We demonstrate that there is risk of forced labour in a broad set of fruit and vegetable commodities, with a small number of commodities accounting for a substantial fraction of total risk at the retail supply level. These findings signal potential trade-offs and synergies across dimensions of food system sustainability and the need for novel research approaches to develop evidence-based forced labour risk mitigation strategies.

Citation

Blackstone, N. T., Norris, C. B., Robbins, T., Jackson, B., & Decker Sparks, J. L. (2021). Risk of forced labour embedded in the US fruit and vegetable supply. Nature Food, 2(9), 692-699. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00339-0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 9, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Aug 23, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-09
• Deposit Date: Jun 10, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2022
• Journal: Nature Food
• Print ISSN: 2662-1355
• Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 692-699
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00339-0
• Keywords: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5654015
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00339-0
• Additional Information: Received: 21 December 2020; Accepted: 8 July 2021; First Online: 23 August 2021; : N.T.B., J.L.D.S., T.R. and B.J. declare no competing interests. C.B.N. declares that she began a position as a Research Scientist in Social Responsibility with Amazon when this research was near completion. Her contribution to this research has been as an independent expert consultant in social life cycle assessment and separate from her role at Amazon. C.B.N. is also the Chief Operating Officer of NewEarth B and Executive Director of the Social Hotspots Database project. Data from the Social Hotspots Database were provided free of charge for academic use in this research.