Social

In Indian society, the caste system, or the class into which a person is born, is often a determining factor in that person’s access to education, decent living conditions, financial stability and overall quality of life. Suminter seeks to break down these social barriers and offer farmers, who often fall at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, an opportunity to advance to higher income and education levels. We help these farmers with the know-hows and farm inputs with an extended credit period.

• In Indian society, the caste system, or the class into which a person is born, is often a determining factor in that person’s access to education, decent living conditions, financial stability and overall quality of life. Suminter seeks to break down these social barriers and offer farmers, who often fall at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, an opportunity to advance to higher income and education levels. We help these farmers with the know-hows and farm inputs with an extended credit period.
• Fairtrade Standards of Practices to be followed to ensure that farmers and workers are given fair treatment such as acceptable working conditions.
• Fairtrade Minimum Prices (determined by the Fairtrade standards and pricing unit) to ensure that producers can cover their average costs of sustainable production. It acts as a safety net for farmers during times when world markets fall below a sustainable level.
• Fairtrade Premium – an additional sum of money that farmers receive for products sold on Fairtrade terms. This is in addition to the organic premium that we pay to the farmers. This money goes into a communal fund for workers and farmers for use in improving their social, economic and environmental conditions.

So far, approximately USD 1.5 million has been allotted for use in community development projects. These include a few of the projects mentioned below: