Yesterday, we shared our perspective on the many ways in which this hard-hitting exposé on modern slavery in Brazil’s coffee sector hit the mark. Today, where it may miss the mark. Or at least, where it may leave readers wanting more.
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WHERE DANWATCH MISSES THE MARK
Context: The scope of the problem
Yesterday we praised the journalism behind the Danwatch report—the ability of the researchers and writer to convey with accuracy and power a nuanced understanding of what modern slavery actually looks like on Brazil’s coffee farms. This critique is the flip side of the coin: Danwatch may have done excellent work at the farm level with its zoom lens, but its report may have benefited from some complementary wide-angle work.
We would have liked to see Danwatch contextualize its field reporting—give readers some sense of the scope of the problem. We have found that the labor conditions described by Danwatch are isolated within Brazil’s coffee sector, and not isolated to Brazil’s coffee sector. Readers of the Danwatch report would not have come away with that understanding, which we believe is critically important to any fair treatment of this issue.
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Perspective: How Brazil compares to other origins
Danwatch gives Brazil credit for reducing the incidence of child labor by half between 2003 and 2013, but in this context it feels like damnation by faint praise. At the very least, Danwatch fails to make these bigger points: that it was only able to generate its exposé because Brazil has sustained a tenacious campaign to eradicate slave labor for more than 20 years. Because leaders in the country’s public and private sectors have worked tirelessly to adopt progressive policies, develop innovative programs and continuously improve operating procedures to better protect workers. And because Brazil’s commitment to transparency runs as deep as its commitment to workers. In other words, because Brazil is the good guy. Again, it was hard to see how readers would have come away with that impression.
These first two shortcomings are mutually reinforcing. Readers are led to understand that Brazil has a coffee farmworker problem, instead of understanding that coffee has a farmworker problem and Brazil offers solutions to that problem, or at least, deeper protections to workers and clearer handles for industry action than any other coffee-growing country.
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Recommendations: What can be done?
Finally, after reading about distressing conditions on Brazil’s coffee farms, we hoped for clear recommendations on what can be done to improve those conditions. Danwatch marshaled more than 50 pages of evidence and made a compelling case for action—we were ready to follow, but the report didn’t lead us anywhere.
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COMING SOON
As we write these words, a report we have co-authored with the Brazilian non-profit Repórter Brasil on modern slavery in Brazil’s coffee sector is in production, due to be published in April. (We reported the key findings from the research behind that report in this eight-part series on the Coffeelands blog in December 2015.) Our report may fall short of the high standard Danwatch sets for reporting, but does address the three issues we have identified here areas where the Danwatch exposé left us wanting more—context on the scope of the problem, perspective on Brazil’s framework for coffee farmworker protection, and recommendations for action in the public sector and the private sector, in Brazil and in the United States.
In the interest of fostering dialogue on an important issue in the world’s most important coffee origin, we would welcome comments and critiques from our colleagues at Danwatch on our report similar to the ones we have published here on theirs.