SeedWorks is a leading Indian seed company and has a Group wide policy, that strongly believes in eradication of Child labour, fair labour wages and implements its stringently in all its verticals. In addition to this SeedWorks believes in Holistic transformation and unless the entire seed industry together walk the talk as a whole focussing on bringing in the change it is far from reality.
SeedWorks approach towards transformation can be classified as below,
- Identifying the root causes which force families and communities to allow children to be engaged in labour
- Addressing these underlying issues by interacting with parents, farming community leaders and children’s collectively where the importance of child rights and the damaging effects of child labour are discussed.
- Empowering farming communities with the knowledge.
- Create a platform for school-going children to play an important role in influencing children who are out of school to get enrolled/re-enrolled. They are also instrumental in voicing their opinions to parents, panchayats, government bodies and decision makers on issues related to child labour and the need for education.
- Through Scholarships to deserving children of the farmer parents
ECHO – “Enabling child and human rights with seed organization” has organized an event on 2nd March 2020 to identify issues & promote ethical seed production supply chain practices. The objective of the event was to promote child rights and decent work with the support of social research organizations, seed industry members, and other voluntary organizations.
In total three panel discussions happened in the event. The themes for the panel discussions were 1) Industry perspective on ethical seed supply chain 2) Decent work in agriculture supply chain – Risk, challenges and Opportunities 3) Child labour and Minimum wages issues in hybrid seed supply chain: Findings from recent research and field level implementation projects.
Our company was represented in the event by Venkatram Vasantavada, Managing Director & CEO.
The dignitaries participated in first panel discussion on Industry perspective on ethical seed supply chain from different seed companies included Mr. Venkatram Vasantavada, Managing Director & CEO SeedWorks International Pvt Ltd; Mr. Dilip Rajan, Managing Director, East-West Seeds India; Mr. Jeff Boscher, Managing Director, HM. Clause India; Dr. G Chaluvaraju, Global Head, Production, BASF Vegetable Seeds and Dr. Ram Kaundinya Director General, Federation of Seed Industry of India was the chairperson for the panel discussion
