One day in the life of a sugar cane farmer

Our sugar buyer, Andrés Schwippert, travelled to Paraguay in June to visit the small farmers’ organisation ASOCACE and the La Felsina sugar mill.

ASOCACE has been Fairtrade certified since 2004. The 220 members and their families benefit from fair trade and the resulting growth in earnings and improved standard of living.

This time Andrés also visited Mario Sanabria. Mario is 51 years old, married and has four children, the youngest of which is four years old. He has been a member of ASOCACE from the outset and plants sugar cane, corn and cassava on his 8 hectares of land, as well as grazing and sweet potatoes for his six oxen and two dairy cows. He also leases another 22 ha for planting sugar cane.



He currently employs two full-time employees, and 23 seasonal workers during the harvest. Mario Sanabria is one of the declining minority of small farmers who plough their land traditionally with oxen. He talks about the difficult life of a sugar cane farmer: “I usually get up at 4.00 in the morning. With my oxen, I walk 6 km to the sugar cane field. My family brings me my lunch in the field. At 18.00, when it gets dark, I go home. I’m currently weighing the sugar cane stalks. We're confident that we’ll have a good harvest this year.



I’m very happy about Fairtrade, as it helps me a lot. It gives me some security for the future and makes my work in the fields easier. For example, I benefited from an offer of ASOCACE to plough 2 ha with modern machinery free of charge. This saved me a lot of time and work. Without the FT premium, I would never earn enough to feed my family.”