Proagro penalises 11 cottonseed growers for employing child labour
Business Standard
January 5, 2006
Ch Prashanth Reddy
/ Hyderabad
Proagro, a company of Bayer Cropsciences, has decided to penalise 11 farmers
and cancel the contracts with three more for employing child labour in
the cottonseed production last year.
The company, which had chalked out an action plan in collaboration with
non-governmental organisations to address the problem of child labour
in hybrid cottonseed production in the state, had also blacklisted nine
farmers for engaging child labour but decided against imposing penalties
on them.
At the same time, it had decided to pay bonus to 55 cottonseed growers
for not engaging child labour, according to Clive J Pegg, managing director
of Proagro.
The action plan of Proagro includes a scheme of incentives and disincentives
to their contract farmers.
Under the scheme, the company will pay the farmers a 5 per cent bonus
on the procurement price if they discontinue engaging child labour. If
the farmers used child labour, the bonus is canceled and the procurement
price is cut by 10 per cent.
If farmers continue to violate the ‘no-child-labour’ norm,
the company will completely reject seeds from them and no future production
contract will be entered into with them.
If farmers in a particular village come forward to totally eliminate child
labour on their farms, the company will reward the entire village by extending
financial support for building educational infrastructure like schools
and supplying educational material.
At present, 139 contract farmers spread over 30 villages in Andhra Pradesh
are engaged by Proagro in the production of cottonseeds in an extent of
275.5 acres.
Pegg told Business Standard that the company’s action for 2006-07
was aimed at completely eradicating child labour from all the Proagro
cotton seed production fields and the integration of the children into
mainstream education, providing leadership to the industry in socially
responsible cottonseed production and ensuring sustainable cottonseed
production for all stakeholders in Proagro supply chain.
