Some 100 vineyard contract workers at the Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West were each delighted to receive a package of basic household groceries in January, including items such as maize meal, cooking oil, beans, macaroni and flour.
This gift forms part of Vergelegen’s Fairtrade initiative, in which farmworkers decide how to invest in their future. Funding comes from premiums that Vergelegen receives from sales of its Fairtrade wines in the United Kingdom. A farm staff committee determines how to allocate this income.
The chairperson of Vergelegen Fairtrade, vineyard supervisor Ricardo Soetsenberg, said his committee decided to support temporary staff contracted during the busy harvest season. “January is a ‘Januworry’, many contractors are single parents and some children go to school hungry. They were so excited about the hampers, over the moon!”
This was the second year food parcels had been distributed to contract workers, and Soetsenberg said the committee had decided to continue this initiative every January.
Vergelegen joined Fairtrade in 2019 and a recent project in 2023 distributed raincoats to children at local, under-resourced schools.
Fairtrade encompasses 1 822 producer organisations across 72 countries. More than 1,8 million farmers and workers are involved in Fairtrade worldwide.
For more information, visit https://www.fairtrade.net/.
