Respect for human dignity leads to fundamental human rights with regards to equal chances and opportunities, just and favorable conditions of work, right to equal pay for equal work, the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself/herself and family an existence worthy of human dignity, and the right to rest and leisure.

These values played a key role in setting up the Pragro Cooperative. Gustavo explains “A group of 19 organic avocado growers in the region, who knew each other from selling to the same packing station, started investigating the advantages of working as a grower cooperation and with Fair Trade certification. In the first case it was important to create confidence within the group.  As a founding member, I was very closely involved in convincing the people of the advantages of exporting the product as a group.  As small scale growers, we have little choice but to work together, if we want to access international markets.  Improving the quality of our product was also very important to us.  On the one hand, the cooperative’s goal is to produce, market and distribute the organic avocados of its members.  On the other hand, we also want to go further and promote organic agriculture in the area.  Sharing our experiences with each other, we were able to increase our product quality which provided us with access to international markets.  As a consequence of this we were able to achieve higher prices, which meant that we gradually could improve the working conditions in the orchards and ultimately the living conditions for our families and workers.  This too, is some kind of a balancing act”.