Natasha Wynne Campaigner, photo by Glenn Edwards
This October, I made my way from Cardiff to London to join up with fellow Oxfam campaigners to call on Coca-Cola to tighten up its supply chain, and to use its influence to lead the food and drink industry to respect land rights.
Many of us had travelled a long way, braving early alarm clocks and autumn drizzle, but this didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. We donned white coats and became sugar inspectors for the morning, attracting a fair bit of attention from commuters as we picked up our placards and made our way over to Coca-Cola HQ.
We all know that too much sugar is bad for us. What many of us don’t know is that our growing appetite for sugar has repercussions for people on the other side of the world. Land grabs – where local communities are kicked off their land without consent or compensation – are a big problem associated with the sugar trade.
Today is an important day for me and you because Coca-Cola as the largest purchaser of sugar in the world has decided to declare zero tolerance on land grabs within its supply chain.
This huge company has immense power to influence its suppliers and the industry as a whole. They lead and others will follow.
Over 215,000 people have signed Oxfam’s petition and took action to show that land grabs are not acceptable and our voices have been heard by Coca-Cola.This has made me feel proud that I was part of something that will improve the lives of fellow human beings and it also shows that no matter how big a company is,they still need to listen to their customers. We hold enormous power as individuals and also as a community and to see Coca-Cola take the Behind the Brands Campaign by Oxfam seriously has renewed my faith in people power.
Oxfam supporters like me now need to keep up the pressure on PepsiCo and ABF. We need to let them know that we are not happy with products that somewhere down the line may have lost families their homes, or farmers their livelihoods. You can read more and take action to stand up for land rights here: http://www.behindthebrands.org/en-gb.
Natasha
Campaigner