Antonie Fountain: "We need a bigger boat"

"We have to solve the problem of poverty, meaning living wages and living incomes. If we fail to do so, we will not solve other sustainability issues like child labour, deforestation or gender inequality." This was one of the messages of Antonie Fountain in his keynote speech at the Only Way is Up! Conference.

In an energetic and passionate speech, peppered with clips from famous movies, Fountain also used a quote from the shark movie Jaws: "We need a bigger boat." What he wanted to say with this is that the fight for living incomes and wages should only be a starting point. "It’s not the finish line of where we want to go. We want prosperous farmers, not farmers barely scraping in. So living income is where the real work begins."

As Managing Director of the VOICE Network, Antonie Fountain has been one of the key advocates for living income in the cocoa sector for many years. He is also the co-author and editor of the biennial Cocoa Barometer, the leading sector publication on the state of sustainability in the sector.

With the current speed, Fountain says, we are not going to achieve SDG 1, 'No Poverty', by 2030. Partially because we lack a sense of direction: "Which is okay, because we’re trying to do something we haven’t done before. But we can’t keep doing that. We need to do it together. We need a lot more ambition, and we need a lot more joint direction."

So, time for a few basic conclusions. One: technology can do a lot, but it is not a technical problem we are trying to solve. It’s a political problem! And that is why we need political solutions. Which means ending voluntary agreements, and create laws instead. "It’s like the Wild West: first lawlessness, then the sheriff comes to town."

Secondly, system change is inevitable. "It’s up to us to shape when and how. And yes, we are with a small group yet, but system changes are inspired by small groups of passionate people."

And finally: it can be done! A lot of progress has been made in the past years. We have a definition and methodology, we have baselines. We have an increasing interest in regulation. "We actually might very well make it, but we do need to change."

In Fountain’s opinion, this means stop pointing fingers to the bad guys and start looking at ourselves. Governments have to make laws and create level playing fields. Certifiers need more ambition in setting minimum prices. And CSOs have to work on their credibility: ‘You are as reliable as the next funding cycle!’

To win this fight, Fountain concludes, we all need to improve.