Developing Fair Trade fruit supply chains from the forests of Senegal's Casamance

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jfairtrade.3.1.0027
• Pages: 27-31
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Author: George Williams
• Subject Matter: Baobab,Casamance,Fairtrade,fair trade,forest,fruit,leave no one behind,non-timber forest products,post-conflict,Senegal,SME,superfood,value chain

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Developing Fair Trade fruit supply chains from

the forests of Senegal’s Casamance

George Williams

George Williams worked at Traidcraft Exchange from 2010 to 2021. From 2018 he was the organisation’s

Impact and Learning Manager. In this role he worked closely with Traidcraft Exchange’s programme

teams in Africa and South Asia, documenting achievements, approaches and lessons learnt from their

work with small-scale producers and workers.

Abstract

As core certified Fairtrade products have become mainstream in the UK market since the

late 1990s, Traidcraft Exchange has focused energies on bringing new innovative supply

chains and new small-producer organisations into the wider Fair Trade system. The case

study presented here focuses on indigenous ‘superfood’ fruits from the forests of Senegal’s

Casamance region. Traidcraft Exchange has worked in partnership with two local processing

SMEs and 2,200 small-scale producers in the Casamance to develop transparent and

fair supply chains for these fruits. The work was catalysed by, but is not limited to, the

development of a new range of Fair Trade juice drinks for the UK market. The case study

highlights some of the achievements and challenges faced by the programme, particularly

with reference to its post-conflict setting. It situates the work within the broader context

of the ‘leave no one behind’ agenda and explores how a trade-based programme has

contributed towards this aim. Of particular note here are the development of social capital,

small producer negotiating power and improved value chain coordination.

Keywords: Baobab; Casamance; Fairtrade; fair trade; forest; fruit; leave no one behind; non-

timber forest products; post-conflict; Senegal; SME; superfood; value chain

Introduction

Traidcraft Exchange has been developing Fair Trade supply chains since the mid-1980s. As certified Fairtrade

products have become mainstream in the UK, at least amongst a small number of core products (e.g.

bananas, sugar, cocoa, coffee), Traidcraft Exchange has worked to bring new supply chains, producer groups

and/or products into the wider Fair Trade system (Williams, 2020, 2021).1 Since 2015, the UN’s Agenda for

Sustainable Development has catalysed the broader international development community to ensure ‘no one

is left behind’ – principle two of the universal values underpinning the agenda (UN, 2021). Analysis by UNDP

identifies ‘five intersecting factors’ that contribute to people being ‘left behind’: discrimination, geography,

governance, socio-economic status, and shocks and fragility (2018). All five factors are relevant to the case

study presented here: fruit supply chains from the forests of Senegal’s Casamance region. Casamance is

separated from Senegal’s capital by the Gambia. It is a post-conflict setting, where communities are

recovering from decades of violence prompted in part by ethnic discrimination. Since 2016 Traidcraft

Exchange has been working in partnership with small producers and two Senegalese processing SMEs to

develop transparent and fair fruit supply chains. Achievements, challenges and learning from this experience

1 Throughout the article, ‘Fair Trade’ is used to refer to the wider movement seeking to make trade fairer, whilst ‘Fairtrade’ is used to refer to the subset of

the movement where specic products are certied as such by Fairtrade International.