Media release: New study highlights human rights impacts of the sugarcane industry on Black Communities in Colombia

23 June: Serious human rights abuses and environmental damage driven by mass sugarcane production in Colombia have been exposed in a new report, out today.

The report – compiled by the Palenke Alto Cauca, Black Communities Process (PCN) and Forest Peoples Programme presents evidence of negative effects of sugarcane plantations on afro-descendant communities and territories in the Cauca region of Colombia.

Large-scale sugarcane plantations carpeting the Cauca valley, referred to as the ‘Green Monster’ by affected communities, have resulted in land loss, damage to water resources, health problems, displacement and violence against traditional black landowners across northern Cauca, leaving many people displaced and/or impoverished.

Land loss and economic displacement

The study highlights how the consequences of sugarcane production run deep. Companies have not only stolen land from black and indigenous communities, but they have made it prohibitively difficult for these groups to maintain a self-sufficient way of life, which is how they have survived for centuries. 

“This sugarcane cultivation has changed land use in a brutal way,” said an Afro-descendant woman leader cited in the report.

“Before [the sugarcane], agriculture was related to other activities in the territory, and people were self-sustaining”, she  added.

Leidy Mina, a co-author of the report, said

“Today, it is our analysis that sugar cane monocultures in the ancestral territories of our community have only served to perpetuate misery, given that our territories previously enjoyed subsistence security through cocoa cultivation from on traditional farms alongside other native crops and economic activities.

“Our ancestors were the owners of the land. Now we find ourselves surrounded by sugarcane and with very few traditional farms. Likewise, the flora and fauna have been affected by chemical inputs, fumigation, burning and the construction of deep wells to irrigate sugarcane plantations, which ultimately end up lowering the water table of the rivers.

“Due to all of this, these days our young people have forgotten about agriculture, as their labour is now tied to these sugar companies,” she said.

The adverse effects on human health and the environment stemming from spraying of toxic agrochemicals, including glyphosate, are also underlined.

A local farmer interviewed for the study said “…with the sugar cane plantations, traditional food crops have been disappearing. They have been damaged because these sugarcane industries use chemicals that end up damaging our fruit and food crops.”  

Supply chain violence

The investigation documents supply chain violence, killings and harassment linked to the sugar sector. According to data collected by Javeriana University, one case relates to Colombia’s largest soft drinks company, Postobón, and national media company RCN - both part of the influential Ardila Lülle conglomerate – that maintained proven relations to paramilitary groups during the armed conflict, providing support and monthly payments to paramilitary groups in exchange for security and protection. In another case, the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal alleges that a Colombian Coca Cola bottling company provided assistance to paramilitaries that murdered up to 10 union members.  Local people today are still fearful of speaking out against the sugar industry.

“After decades of displacement by industrial sugarcane plantations, the communities find themselves in situations of increased poverty, violence and vulnerability,” said Viviane Weitzner, policy advisor at the Forest Peoples Programme and co-author of the report.

“Their autonomy, self-reliance and cultural integrity is slowly being stripped from them in a situation akin to ethnocide,” she said.

Threats to land and human rights defenders

 The tie between sugarcane companies and paramilitary groups highlights the troubling reality that there is no freedom to speak out against these issues without fear of violent reprisals. Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for human rights defenders, and the Cauca valley is the country’s “murder epicenter”. Communities or individuals that demand better workers’ rights or the restitution of land that is legally theirs must accept that their actions could have life-threatening consequences. One woman leader involved in the study, who prefers to remain anonymous, states: “We receive constant threats. Because when one wants to highlight the type of actions that are being carried out in the territories, then one is seen as an opponent of development - because their development is one that devastates the territory.”

Irresponsible corporate conduct

A review of the policies of sugar mills and Colombian sugar producing companies finds multiple corporate failures to address past and ongoing human rights violations caused by or linked to their operations. Major shortcomings include the voluntary nature of corporate sustainability standards and missing independent third-party verification to ensure compliance. It is found that sugar mills only apply human rights due diligence (HRDD) standards to the sugarcane they grow themselves, and not to their suppliers. If human rights issues are addressed, attention is primarily given to labour standards without due attention to land rights, free prior and informed consent, the collective rights of black communities, the right to a healthy environment and risks to human rights defenders. Effective due diligence to verify the legality of land acquisition or how much land is claimed by black, indigenous or other community owners is especially weak or absent.

The study drawn up from the perspectives of affected black communities, sets out a comprehensive list of proposals for reform and corporate justice, including the need for greater legal controls on the activities of industry and supply chain actors.

“If we look at this whole matter of the sugarcane industry and its impacts, we can say that the landscapes across the valley and its geography have been made uniform,” said Yellen Aguila, co-author of the report and leader of the black movement in the Palenque.  

“They have taken away the diversity of nature without knowing that by doing that, they were taking away our own diversity and sending our sustainable way of life and all our lives to hell,” he said.

“And all that, to be able to produce and accumulate more for a few at the expense of everything and everyone.”

ENDS

Further information

Communities [in Cauca] are dispossessed of their land and scattered across islands of small fincas (farms) which are surrounded by sugarcane. There, it is almost impossible for them to grow plants to sustain themselves and their communities, as sugarcane producers divert the water supply for their own crops. This can either flood or destroy ancestral lands, or leave madres viejas – underground water reserve ecosystems that have supplied traditional communities with water for centuries – almost dry. Sugarcane plants are also doused in pesticides, which in turn ruin traditional communities’ cultural crops.

After slavery was abolished in 1851, black communities fought fiercely for the rights to their land, but now have had it taken away from them. Unable to sustain themselves, they are forced to work as day labourers in appalling conditions for the very companies who are responsible for the disintegration of their traditional way of life.

 

“Since 1851, the Afro-descendant population went from slavery to servitude, with very few exceptions”.

 

—Aurora Vergara Figueroa, Ethnic Hearing, Afro-Colombian Day 2020 Commemoration, May 21st, 2020  

CONTACT

For interviews and media enquiries:

Forest Peoples Programme: Tom Dixon, tdixon@forestpeoples.org, +44 1608 690 760

BOX: Summary Points

1. Sugarcane companies are not required to follow any human rights due diligence, and even when they are there is no third-party regulatory body to ensure compliance:
2. Social compliance practices that do take place focus only on workers' rights and child labour, and there is little information on how they acquire their land:
3. Black and indigenous communities have had their land stripped from them, making it impossible for them to maintain their traditional lifestyle:
4. These communities are forced into increasing poverty and violence, often having to work as day labourers in the sugarcane companies to survive:
5. Sugarcane producers and downstream companies have ties to corruption and violent paramilitary actions:
6. Protesters and activists cannot speak out against the situation without being threatened or risking their lives.