Soft Commodity Trading
Benefitting from Misery?
Switzerland is a central trading hub for agricultural commodities such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, or grains and globally significant agricultural commodity traders are based here. The sector is highly concentrated with few powerful companies controlling production, trade, and processing. They have a lot of influence on the conditions of production are thus also responsible for the many human rights violations on that stage. Switzerland has a responsibility to ensure human rights are respected in all business operations of its traders. To that end, regulation of the commodity trading sector is long overdue.
Research
Public Eye uses research and publications to shed light on the opaque soft commodities trade and the business practices of Swiss-based traders. These companies increasingly control not only the trade of agricultural commodities, but also their production, which also makes them responsible for numerous human and labour rights violations that occur at that stage.
