When Brussels and Washington announced a “Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair and Balanced Trade,” headlines focused on geopolitics, tariffs and competitiveness. What received far less attention was the unsettling ease with which a bilateral trade deal can predetermine the content of EU legislation.
Laws such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) were introduced to protect people and the planet, but they cannot deliver on their promise if they are watered down to appease powerful trading partners.
But at the very moment when smallholder farmers need to shoulder the costs of complying with sustainability laws, other players may be manoeuvring to avoid assuming their share of the effort. When it comes to trade regulations, small-scale farmers, who produce more than half of the world’s and the European Union’s food, have not only been systematically denied a seat at the table, but they are also expected to comply with legislation crafted far from their lived realities, with little regard for the challenges they face.
Across Europe and around the world, civil society organisations, smallholder farmer groups, as well as the Fair Trade Movement, have spent years campaigning to ensure that the EU’s green agenda is implemented fairly, so that it does not once again penalise actors in vulnerable positions in the supply chain.
With climate change already placing enormous pressure on smallholder farmers, the urgency to align environmental ambition with social justice has never been greater.
Take Ghana’s cocoa sector. The EU is the single largest market for Ghanaian cocoa, making Brussels’ regulatory decisions existential for smallholder farmers in the country. In recent conversations with the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO), a young smallholder cocoa farmer and compliance officer told us that climate change has already devastated their yields.
“When we are expecting rainfall, we are seeing prolonged sunshine. This reduces the crops and increases food prices. Life is already difficult, and when new regulations come, farmers are rarely consulted on how to comply.” He wonders how policymakers can implement rules without “considering the farmer’s perspective,” ignoring whether they are workable in place. His case is far from an exception, between 2021 and 2024 cocoa production in Ghana declined by nearly 50 percent, endangering the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers.
As Europe continues to overlook farming communities, how can we expect to keep enjoying the chocolate that sweetens our lives, the coffee that fuels our mornings, or the cotton woven, too often by underpaid women working in deplorable conditions, into the clothes we wear?
A woman cooperative leader echoed this concern and warned of the generational challenge the sector faces. If decent livelihoods are not secured, “young people will leave farming. We need regulations that support us, not punish us, and prices that make farming attractive for the future.”
The world’s recent history tells us that when trade tensions flare, those furthest from the negotiation tables bear the greatest burden. While the EU has styled itself as a global standard-setter, that reputation now hangs in the balance.
Even worse, if bilateral trade deals undermine EU sustainability laws before they even take effect, the credibility of the sustainability agenda and its human rights commitments could be badly damaged. For smallholders who have already invested in compliance, this would not only place them back at square one, but in a far more vulnerable position than when the game began.
Those in the most vulnerable positions do not stand a chance in the current trade system. Even when the price of their crops rises, the benefits rarely trickle down, while the costs of climate change and unfair policies tend to be permanent.
The EU has the power, and the obligation, to flip the script. Trade agreements must evolve from instruments of imbalance into frameworks of fair partnership. Smallholder farmers must be placed at the heart of their design, not left on the margins. Soft commitments, such as voluntary sustainability standards will not be enough. What is needed are binding measures that guarantee a level playing field: farm-gate prices should reflect the true value of farmers’ labour, and compliance costs must be shared, not dumped on those least able to absorb them.
Only by ensuring meaningful participation for smallholder farmers, cooperatives, SMEs, and civil society, and by supporting compliance costs, can the EU set a global benchmark for trade that is fair, green and inclusive.
Farming communities are not asking for anything more than what they deserve: recognition, fair prices and a meaningful say in the rules that govern their livelihoods. The question is whether the EU will continue to negotiate over their heads or finally give them a voice in the decisions that shape their future.
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Virginia Enssle is International and Institutional Relations Manager, Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO).
Virginia Enssle is International and Institutional Relations Manager, Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO).