Fyffes launches gender equality program on its farms in Honduras

Fyffes and its subsidiary Sol Group, a melon producer in Honduras, have launched a gender equality program. Called "HERessentials," the program seeks to address the gender inequality prevalent in the country and especially in agriculture, according to a release.

The gender equality program aims to train men and women working at Sol Honduras on gender and related issues such as health, home finances, interpersonal relationships and stress management.

The program is aligned to Fyffes sustainability target, which is: “100% of Fyffes own sites in Latin America to benefit from Gender Equality Programs by 2025 and 50% of suppliers by 2030.” This goal is also aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for gender equality, Fyffes said.

Fyffes says it has a long-standing partnership with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) on its HERproject initiative and first began implementing a gender program in 2019 both in Honduras and Costa Rica. Due to the pandemic, BSR developed a digital version of HERproject called HERessentials and Fyffes helped adapt that online version to the Latin American cultural context, using examples of gender issues faced the region.

Fyffes is making good progress against its target and has rolled out the Heressentials tool via training apps on tablets in Costa Rica, Belize, Ecuador as well as Honduras, and soon to be launched also in Colombia, the release said.

Since its inception in Honduras 959 fieldworkers and packhouse workers have been trained on the HERessentials program, including seasonal workers, supervisors, managers and administrative employees, Michael Fletes, sustainability coordinator at Sol Honduras, said of the Honduras launch.

“The experience has been enriching as we have brought technology closer to people, provided a safe space to address their work concerns including gender issues, and learned about the challenges faced by our people as well as the community needs,” said Fletes, who added, “We have also established a Gender Committee to address gender-related concerns in the workplace.”

Fyffes, which became part of the Sumitomo Corporation in 2017, is an importer of Fairtrade certified bananas, one of the largest banana and pineapple importers in Europe and the biggest melon importer in North America, according to the company.

Grupo SOL is a producer, packer, transporter and distributor of melons and watermelons, produced in the tropical microclimate of Central America for the North American market during the winter months. Since 2013, SOL is a subsidiary of Fyffes and employs between 13,000 and 15,000 seasonal workers in Choluteca and Ojo de Agua in Honduras and the Zacapa region in Guatemala.