Blackstone Nicole Tichenor, Norris Catherine Benoit, Robbins Tali, Jackson Bethany, Decker Sparks Jessica L
Division of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
NewEarth B, York, ME, USA.
Nat Food. 2021 Sep;2(9):692-699. doi: 10.1038/s43016-021-00339-0. Epub 2021 Aug 23.
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.
可持续食品消费研究主要集中在生态限度内促进人类健康。对社会可持续性的关注较少，部分原因是数据和模型有限。在全球范围内，农业是强迫劳动发生率最高的行业之一，低利润率、家庭劳动力短缺、对工人的法律保护不足以及高劳动力需求导致了剥削性劳动条件。在此，我们使用不同的数据集和一种新的强迫劳动风险评分方法，评估美国水果和蔬菜零售供应链中潜在的强迫劳动风险。我们证明，多种水果和蔬菜商品存在强迫劳动风险，少数商品在零售供应链层面的总风险中占很大比例。这些发现表明，在食品系统可持续性的各个维度之间可能存在权衡和协同效应，并且需要新的研究方法来制定基于证据的强迫劳动风险缓解策略。
