Fair Trade

Fazenda Santa Cruz:

Located in Iaçu-Bahia, Fazenda Santa Cruz is a pionner on the fair trade certification for hired labour in Brazil and it reflects our belief that that generate social and environmental transformations through our commercial activity is essential for a the business sustainability. The farm has a total área of 880 hectares divided between:

240 hectares of limes, which represents 7.000 tons per year
95 hectares of mangoes
545 hectares of preserved and native vegetation

Fazenda Santa Cruz is located in one of the poorest area in Brazil, where the main economic activity are cattle and fruit production. The environmental location from Fazenda Santa Cruz is not less sensitive than its social reality: the natural coverage is caatinga, which is one of the most devastated vegetation in Brazil. We are glad to keep 62% of Fazenda Santa Cruz area covered by natural vegetation.40% of the population of Iaçu depends direct or indirectly from Fazenda Santa Cruz activities, what makes from Fazenda Santa Cruz be the biggest employer in the municipality, employing more than 200 fixed people.

MIssion

Mission

Produce and commercialize limes and mangoes, continuously improving the quality on its products, services and image, promoting the conservation and sustainable use of all natural resources, and encouraging and generating social benefits.

Vison

Vision

Fazenda Santa Cruz is committed to work with profitability and sustainability, aiming to become a model company for all employees, partners and customers, and thus generate social transformations.
Fazenda Santa Cruz voluntarily undertakes to follow the Fairtrade principles and values, and to promote socio economic development in the region in which its operations and activities take place, in a way that this process results in changes that improve community economic capacity and social, cultural and financial empowerment for all employees.

Fairtrade certificate

We stand for the idea that, more than a certificate, the Fairtrade certification reflects our values and mission: to commercialize not just a product, but also the sustainability of our business, supporting the local community to grow socially and economically, continuously improving our quality in products and services and, consequently to reach our main goal which is to ensure a safe, good and premium product for our customers. We believe that this new certificate allow us to strengthen our relationship with our clients and the final consumer and securely root our partnerships in the market.

In 2014 we started to develop the project to certificate Fazenda Santa Cruz as the first FairTrade farm of limes and mangoes in Brazil under the hired labour standard as a way to comply with our vision and mission In December 2015 we finally got the certificate

More than 200 fixed employees founded an official association to lead the Fairtrade projects. They were divided in several groups in order to ensure that the interest of all of them will be represented

The Employees Association has periodical meetings to discuss potential projects, workers needs, etc.
Besides that, there is a representant of the farm’s border in the association and during the meeting to ensure a open dialogue between workers and direction and to help them to manage and control all projects.
The communication between workers and border is open and transparent to protect that all worker’s needs will be considered for decisions taken by the directors for the farm strategy.

Sustainable and Social actions

“Santa Cruz Library”: 52 children spend from 8 to 10 hours per week at this space, developing different skills, which we believe that will be important for their life and for the community. It is an extra school activity, completely independent from governmental and public investments. Teacher, material, rent and all other costs are completely covered by Fazenda Santa Cruz.

Theater for kids: Aiming to introduce traditional tales to the children from the community, we developed a new project where literary histories are readen and played by the kids, promoting their creativity, group abilities, and cultural knowledge. During the year, the children choose one tale that will be played in a theatre for the families, farm’s employees and community, celebrating the year ending.

Project “Happy Child”: Now a days, children, independently of the economic situation, are used to spend their free time playing electronic games alone, watching television, etc. In this modern scenario, we developed a project to introduce old and traditional games for the children, where they could play together games that strengthen their creativity, their ability to deal with different people with different believes and educations, etc. They could develop socializing skills, looking to each other needs and taking care of their relationships with their friends. In a time where people are becoming more and more selfish, we believe that the social ability to discuss different opinions and realities is essential for a better world.