"Certified Rainforest Alliance coffee farm in Colombia had overcrowded housing", 27 June 2025

...Nestled in the mountains around the municipality of Andes, in Colombia’s Antioquia department, La Arboleda coffee farm is certified by Rainforest Alliance, the world’s leading agricultural certification program. During harvest, around 500 workers are needed to pick every bean produced on one of the country’s largest farms. When Repórter Brasil visited the site in January this year, it found that workers were sleeping in makeshift sheds and using bathrooms without showers...

The findings are detailed in the report The World’s best coffee? Poor accommodation, long working hours and informality in Colombia’s coffee harvest...

Experts warn that this high level of production does not always come with labor rights protections. When Repórter Brasil visited La Arboleda, it found bathrooms where water came straight from a pipe, with no temperature control. The farm had 12 dormitories, each housing between 60 and 80 workers. One contained 37 bunk beds. It was in this overcrowded shed that pickers rested before returning to the fields the next day.

None of the temporary workers at La Arboleda had formal employment contracts, confirmed both the manager and the farm owner, businessman Rigoberto Luis Franco Arroyave...

Rainforest Alliance acknowledged that La Arboleda is certified under its program...

Starbucks responded that La Arboleda is not currently part of its C.A.F.E. Practices program. The company did not specify when the farm left the program, only noting that verifications occur every one to two years.

The full statements from the certifiers can be read here.

Besides the interviews conducted in January, the reporting team later contacted the owner of La Arboleda for comments on working conditions but received no response before publication. The space remains open for future statements...

Fairtrade International outlines a range of social criteria, but none related to worker housing conditions for seasonal laborers are required from small-scale producer organizations like cooperatives...

Fairtrade International told Repórter Brasil that it “recognizes the need to do more to ensure that the benefits of Fairtrade reach workers on smallholder farms, including temporary, seasonal, and migrant laborers.” However, the organization noted that “many farmers earn very little and sell only a fraction of their crops under Fairtrade terms, so requiring them to provide worker housing is a significant challenge”...

[All companies named in the reporting were contacted for comment by the authors.]