Cola giants one in protecting rights to land

ROME, Italy — PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Company agree to support the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, an initiative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)  and endorsed by the World Food Security, to promote the rights of the people to land and livelihood.

More specifically, the guidelines will secure the people’s ownership rights and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests as a means to eradicate hunger and poverty, and support sustainable development and protect the environment. Should large-scale land acquisitions happen, for instance, the people are protected against land grabbing.

PepsiCo has released a policy that recognises its obligations to respect and protect the people’s rights, and encourages its supplier countries to meet certain standards as well as the new guidelines.

For its part, Coca-Cola which works with Oxfam, an organisation against poverty, will protect the locals’ land rights of communities as well as conduct assessments in some of the world's top sugarcane-producing regions. It will advocate that food and beverage companies, traders, and sourcing country governments endorse and implement the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines.

Both multinationals vow to participate more actively in the Committee on World Food Security to demonstrate support of responsible land rights practices.