Organic Lives

Leonor Gimelfarb has a brutal honesty about her that threatens the legitimacy of her claims against popular business mantra on the difficulties of running socially and environmentally sustainable businesses. Yet she has all the facts, experiences, and legitimacy that justify her confidence. She is an industry insider with a loud voice for the man in the fields who does not understand the intricacies of "business". She works with Remei AG "a company that, as a policy and also as an achievement, has reconciled ethical responsibility with profitability," an SME in Switzerland specialised exclusively and involved in organic cotton through an integrated value chain covering from raw material to distribution. "It is quite fascinating approach, and so far it works," says Leonor, and adds with a chuckle, "Hard work, but great reward, and we are still in business!" Ever since its foundation in 1983, production at Remei is governed by the five principles Organic Cultivation, Fairness, Ecological Processing, Quality, and Transparency. BioRe©, an umbrella brand for the products, was given an award at the UN World Summit for Sustainable Development, 2002, in Johannesburg.

At the last Forum's annual conference, Leonor was the youngest to sit on a panel on "The Role of Business in Poverty Reduction"; yet her message transcended age. She brings further authenticity by talking about what she is practising rather than just theorising. She's only in her late twenties; the force of her message and the methodical route of implementation which she lays leaves grey hairs in business wanting. Curiosity drives her ambition, the more she's experienced in her work that spans Europe, Asia and Africa, the more she's convinced of the need for more conscientious businesses.

INSPIRE: It was hard at the beginning. Did your company go around convincing farmers to change their farming methods to organic?

Leonor Gimelfarb: At the very beginning it was just farmers who heard about it and were interested and wanted to learn more; because a lot of farmers see for themselves that the chemical use is not sustainable: they see their workers faint on the fields, they see that their fields' productivity goes down year by year; so some of them are aware that something is going wrong and that the course has to be reversed somehow. Of course they're also very scared to convert from one system to another because they're most of the time heavily indebted. If their crops fail then that's a nightmare for them; they won't be able to repay their loans.

INSPIRE: Does your company support or offer some sort of guarantee to farmers taking the transformation to organic farming?

Leonor: What we do is we offer farmers a purchase guarantee, so farmers who register with the project know that they will sell their entire cotton production. Secondly farmers who join the project the first year, we give the inputs - biological pesticides, biological growth promoters - on credits and farmers can pay back at the end of the season with the cotton. Another thing we give is a premium price; we give higher prices than market prices and this enables farmers to after some years finance their inputs themselves.

INSPIRE: So you're not very good friends with Monsanto?

Leonor: The analyses we make, we see that GMO cotton - which is called BT cotton - is the same logic like the green revolution: very high production costs for unsure results. So it makes the farmer even more vulnerable. With organic farming we're trying to make the farmer less vulnerable - we try to lower the production cost while maintaining soil productivity, and harvest at a good level. The problem with BT seeds is that because the seeds are very expensive, the farmer chooses his best plot of land and still puts a lot of inputs - since he has invested so much in the seeds which are sometimes three or four times more expensive, he also gives a lot of input. The promise that fewer pesticides are required is not always a fact; sometimes even more pesticides are required for the BT cotton because if the BT cotton seeds are developed to be resistant to certain pests, then they are vulnerable to certain others. The farmer has to use more pesticides, as more studies are beginning to show. Sometimes at the end of the season the harvest is not so good; sometimes it's better: if the climatic conditions are perfect then the harvest can be much higher; if the climatic conditions are less than perfect - say there's a drought, which happens a lot in those areas - then it fails. In any case, production costs are so high, there's the problem of indebtedness because farmers are taking credits, plus there are the health hazards that chemicals are causing.

INSPIRE: Why do you think organic farming is in itself good? Why is it better, besides just the environmental effects, and the effects of use of chemicals to the soil in other farming methods?

Leonor: When we say "just the environment" it sounds as if the environment doesn't matter, because only human beings matter. Of course human beings matter, but what we forget is that in countries like India, human beings live with their environment and they completely depend on it. In Europe we have a very strict and completely unnatural separation between the environment and human beings because we human beings live in cities and the environment basically is something for weekends, for leisure, for relaxation. In countries like India, the environment is the very livelihood of people; people depend on a clean, healthy environment for food; they need clean water because they drink directly from the river. Maintaining soil productivity is not just a luxury or fun it is ensuring that farmers can get something from the soil. Protecting the environment, which is what organic farming does, is helping human beings living in and from that environment.

INSPIRE: I guess it's really some sort of farming in a way that is integrated into natural lifestyles without putting too much demand on the people or the land.

Leonor: That's also why organic farming is definitely a good option especially for small farmers in developing countries because it is what is called adaptive technology and is using local resources. So it's using the most out of what you have on your farm or directly from the environment so you're not dependent on others, you're not dependent on companies.

INSPIRE: How does the idea of organic farming relate to, say, Fair Trade? Are there certain ways of trading fairly that are not good for the environment?

Leonor: The idea of fair trade is to improve the living and working conditions of small growers. And that is exactly what organic farming is doing. Organic farming is a sustainable production system; it makes farmers independent; it gives them a sense of dignity because they can live from their own work and their own know-how; they have stable yields and less financial vulnerability. So organic farming gives them a sustainable livelihood and is what Fair Trade should be aiming at.

There are two sides: the production and the trade sides and both are important. If you're focusing only on the trading aspects - having long term relationships with your suppliers, paying better prices, being open for dialogue, for cooperation - that is good and important. But if you really want to help small farmers, you should also look at production; you should also help small producers achieve a sustainable production system, which is safe, stable and productive. Many times they need external input to be able to do that because they don't have the know-how or the money, so they need someone externally who can facilitate know-how development or who can finance investments.

INSPIRE: How do these farmers think of themselves in relation to your company? Do they see themselves as a part of your company or they're just suppliers?

Leonor: Of course the best would be to ask them. I can only judge from the way they react to us - their hospitality, openness, and smiles. They're excited to talk to us; whenever we bring visitors they're open, ready to show the whole farm; they're very proud to show their farming systems and methods, and proud to show the infrastructure that we've helped finance. So they seem to be happy and grateful for the work we do. At least that is what they say and that is what they show. When we ask them what matters the most, they say that the training we give, especially the advisory services from the agriculture experts who visit them once a month is something they appreciate greatly. That is because otherwise in these areas farmers are completely left to themselves. If the crop is failing there's no one they can turn to. The guys who go for BT cotton, they go to the shop, buy their seeds, plant them, and if the crop fails, there's no one to help them. It's not the guy in the shop who will help them; they're left to themselves. In our system farmers have a contact person to who at anytime they can go to ask for advice, for more input, for support if something goes wrong, for credits if they need to develop an irrigation system or improve their work.

INSPIRE: How do you personally relate to this work? You visit these farmers a number of times a year; I guess it becomes very changing when you walk into the home of someone you're working with.

Leonor: Certainly there's a bit of wanting to help things improve. I would say I'm looking at the world and I see we're destroying the environment we depend on for our lives, I see that there's a lot of inequality; I see that a lot of people have a very hard life in this world, partly because of the way we're organised. I would like to see that things improve. If I'm working 8 hours a day in an office, I'd like this work to have a meaning and I'd like this work to contribute to the change I'd like to see in the world.

One thing is when I sit in my office in front of my computer and it's raining outside or whatever, at least I know whom I'm working for and I know it's someone for whom I have a lot of respect. I don't know all the 2,400 farmers we've registered this year; I've met a few tens of them. But I know where they live, what kind of difficulties they face, I know that the work we do is only one step in a long run but I know it matters to them and that is very motivating.

It is very humbling because - farming - that is real work. I didn't know that before I joined the company. I grew up in the city, I went to university, I work in an officeÉfinally I realized the real thing is agriculture. We depend on it for food, clothing, maintaining the landscape, for many things in life. Agriculture is the first thing; without it there would be nothing functioning in this world. So I've developed a lot of respect especially for small farmers. They work so hard for such a small income and still year after year they go, they open their land, they sow, they look after their crop, they harvest; year upon year, again and again, in drought and in rain. I realize that in Europe I can have wonderful food and wear great garments, because there are these individual guys in India who are sweating in their cotton fields. I have to be humbled.

And also it is fun. I'm working with very interesting people, inspiring people, people with whom I have shared values, so that makes it very comfortable for me to work with them. It's wonderful to be travelling to India, not like a tourist but seeing life in India. What is it like to be a cotton grower in India - What is your culture, what do you believe, what do you hope for, what makes you happy, what are your concerns? - being able to see life in such a different context is a great privilege.