Solutions: Agriculture
We are experts in advanced human rights due diligence for agricultural supply chains, offering a range of services for clients across the sector.
The ProblemCommercial agriculture presents profound human rights challenges - forced labour in harvesting, child labour on family farms, land rights conflicts with indigenous communities, hazardous pesticide exposure, poverty wages, and union suppression.
Traditional audit-based approaches fail to capture these dynamic risks embedded across multi-tier supply chains, spanning diverse geographies and seasonal production cycles.
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Using proprietary data collection and machine learning analysis of thousands of risk indicators, we conduct Human Rights Risk Assessments (HRRAs) and Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs) that reveal actual and potential adverse impacts across agricultural supply chains. Our approach combines:
Sub-national risk mapping more accurately identifying salient risks within the value chain such forced labour, child labour, land rights violations, and discriminatory practices
Commodity-specific risk modelling for +200 commodities including the likes of cocoa, palm oil, coffee, soy, cotton, rubber
Stakeholder engagement methodologies assisting your internal programs
Bespoke salient risk methodologies able to be accurately applied to all global commodities
Supplier audits and bespoke tailored deep dive assessments to assist your responsible sourcing programs
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We develop human rights policies addressing salient agricultural risks and embed them within governance structures, procurement processes, and supplier management systems. Our approach ensures policies translate into operational practice rather than remaining aspirational documents.
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We design risk-based mitigation strategies prioritised by severity and likelihood of harm to rights-holders. Our systems include:
Supplier performance management integrating human rights criteria into sourcing decisions
Targeted capacity building programs addressing root causes of labour rights violations
Collaborative interventions tackling landscape-level risks
Enhanced due diligence protocols for high-risk sourcing categories and geographies
Living wage gap analysis and roadmaps for addressing inadequate compensation
Deep dive custom assessments such as labour provider recruitment assessments to ensure debt bondage and forced labour is eliminated from high-risk suppliers
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We design and implement worker voice programs and community feedback channels enabling those affected by adverse impacts to raise concerns safely. Our grievance systems integrate multiple reporting channels, ensure confidential investigation procedures, and track remedy provision, moving beyond complaint logging to genuine resolution.
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Our technology platforms enable real-time monitoring of human rights indicators, automated alert generation when conditions deteriorate, and transparent reporting aligned with regulatory disclosure requirements. Unlike static annual audits, our systems provide dynamic intelligence on evolving human rights situations.
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Our approach leverages capabilities traditional consultancies cannot provide:
Predictive machine learning models we can create bespoke farms / supplier level risk alerts for you with those at elevated risk of forced labour, child labour, and other human rights violations being connected to e.g. commodity prices to ensure risks such as child labour are mitigated
Alternative data sources including worker payment records, recruitment fee patterns, housing conditions monitoring, and freedom of movement indicators revealing coercion risks
Bespoke data platform aggregating supplier human rights performance, audit findings, grievance records, corrective action tracking, and remedy provision in one unified system
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We bring deep understanding of sector-specific human rights challenges:
Labour rights – forced labour indicators in seasonal harvesting, child labour in family farming systems, freedom of association suppression, wage theft, hazardous working conditions, discrimination
Land and indigenous peoples' rights – land grabbing, inadequate consultation and consent processes, displacement, impacts on traditional livelihoods, cultural heritage destruction
Community rights – water access restrictions, environmental contamination, health impacts from pesticide exposure, loss of food security
Vulnerable groups – migrant worker exploitation, women's rights violations, discrimination against ethnic minorities
We go beyond basic compliance to transform your human rights due diligence into an effective strategy, backed by advanced analytics.
The SolutionWe operate within international frameworks, adapt ing our approach to your needs using data collection, advanced analytics and machine learning that’s trained on sector-specific data.
We’ll support you to meet all your regulatory responsibilities - including the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive - while using our expertise to build a holistic strategy that goes beyond basic compliance.
Why our approach works
A targeted approach, region by region.
Generic country risk scores obscure the reality that agricultural human rights risks concentrate in specific provinces, districts, and farming communities. Our granular analysis identifies exactly which sourcing regions face elevated risks, enabling targeted intervention rather than blanket approaches.
Beyond compliance to genuine impact.
Our systems don't just satisfy regulatory requirements, they enable companies to genuinely understand their human rights impacts and take meaningful action to prevent and address harm to workers, farmers, and communities.
Keeping pace with evolving regulations.
Our human rights due diligence approach ensures readiness for CSDDD, German Supply Chain Act, and other mandatory HREDD legislation requiring systematic identification, prevention, mitigation, and remediation of adverse human rights impacts.