The wine industry

Growing wine (grapes) is a challenging business: it relies on seasonal work for harvesting grapes, but also requires specialised equipment to produce wine. Workers and small-scale farmers have often fallen short of earning a stable living from wine production, lacking the spare money to invest in improvements that cater to shifting trends and tastes in the industry.

Specific problems also confronted some origins. In South Africa, for instance, apartheid’s legacy of racial segregation continued to haunt the wine sector, with black workers often performing the more laborious tasks at wine estates. In Lebanon, smallholders who struggled to make a living from farming sometimes turned to illicit crops, which the government would then eradicate – for some, switching to wine production offered hope of a new start.

Current challenges

The wine industry faces various challenges that impact the environment, society and the economy.

• Uneven power relations between buyers and producers: Retailers and brands hold tremendous sway over the wine industry. Some of them use price as the sole criterion in tendering and blended bulk wine purchases are growing which makes it even easier for them to drop and replace suppliers.
• Environmental impact: The expansion of vineyards, spurred by growing global demand for wine, causes pressure on the environment. Expanding cultivation areas without regard for natural resources like soil and water leads to environmental degradation and exacts a heavy toll on water supplies. In addition, water shortages and extreme weather events are impacting wine producing regions around the world. By 2050, most land in today's major wine producing regions may be unsuitable for vineyards.
• Labour conditions: Migrant workers and women, for example, are widely employed by vineyards, but face structural inequality regarding their rights, treatment, pay, advancement opportunities and their say.

"We recently became Fairtrade certified. For us, Fairtrade is the alternative that we need to strengthen our participation so that we can all move forward [together].”

Saray Morales, member of Asociación Gremial de Vitivinicultores del Secano de Cauquenes (Vidseca), in Chile

How Fairtrade makes a difference

• Decent livelihoods: Through the Fairtrade Minimum Price and the Fairtrade Standards, producers’ bargaining positions are strengthened. The Standards for traders prohibit unfair contract agreements and the Minimum Price protects producers from a price drop below average production costs. Furthermore, the Fairtrade Premium, an additional payment on Fairtrade sales for community purposes, can alleviate the pressure of rising costs of living or support workers through communal investments. A Fairtrade project in South Africa is working with 26 wine grape farms employing 28,000 workers to strengthen trade unions and improve livelihoods.
  
• Climate resilience: Fairtrade helps wine growers to adapt their farming practices to the effects of climate change. The standards also encourage them to use climate -friendly practices. The Bosman Family Vineyards in South Africa, for example, plants and grows a tree variety that is especially efficient at capturing carbon.
• Gender equality: Committing to Fairtrade means committing to anti-discrimination and gender equality principles. We support producer organisations with special training and programmes to raise awareness and empower disadvantaged producers and workforce members.

Fairtrade wine is good for people, planet and business. Find out how your company can get involved.