Human rights due diligence: CLMRS, grievance mechanism and living income

What does human rights due diligence look like at the first mile?

Human rights risks in agricultural supply chains concentrate at the first mile: on the farms and in the households that produce the crop. Child labour, forced labour, unsafe work and incomes below what a family needs to live decently are hard to see from a head office, and hard to address without data from the households themselves.

Farmer1st brings three tools onto the same farmer-controlled network: a child labour monitoring and remediation system, an independent grievance mechanism, and living income measurement.

How does child labour monitoring and remediation work?

A CLMRS (child labour monitoring and remediation system) follows a clear cycle:

1. Identify. Household visits and surveys, run by trained field teams, identify children at risk.
2. Record. Each case is recorded with the information needed to act, and access is limited to the people handling it.
3. Remediate. Actions are planned with the family and the community, such as school support, birth registration, or income measures for the household.
4. Follow up. Repeat visits check whether the situation has improved, until the case can be closed.

Because the CLMRS runs on the same registry as traceability, cases can be linked to suppliers and areas, and progress is visible without exposing individual children beyond the people who need to know. Visits are organised through field agent management.

Why an independent grievance mechanism?

Farmers and workers rarely report problems through the organisation they depend on for income. A grievance mechanism that is independent of the employer or buyer makes it safer to speak up.

On Farmer1st, farmers and workers can raise a concern through the farmer app, by voice or text, in their own language, or through a field contact. Each grievance is recorded, routed to the right people and tracked to resolution, and the person who raised it can follow what happened. Patterns across grievances show where systemic problems sit.

How is living income measured?

Living income is the income a household needs for a decent standard of living in its location. Measuring the gap requires household data: production, prices received, costs and other income sources. Farmer1st collects it with consent, through farmer surveys and field visits, and compares it with a benchmark for the area.

Actions that close the gap, such as better practices through training and quizzes, can then be measured against the same indicators.

How does this support the CSDDD?

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/1760 (CSDDD), as amended by Directive (EU) 2026/470, requires the largest companies to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse human rights and environmental impacts in their chains of activities, and to provide a complaints procedure. First-mile evidence on child labour, grievances and income is part of what that due diligence rests on. Together with EUDR compliance, it gives a single view of environmental and social risks at plot and household level.

How are farmers and children protected?

Data about households and children is among the most sensitive a company can hold. It is collected with consent, restricted to the people who need it for each case, and encrypted in transit and at rest. Farmers see what is recorded about their household.

Farmer1st is the first-mile infrastructure built around farmers: a farmer-controlled network where companies, governments and organisations collect, verify and share origin data, and build the services they need on top of it.

Can this follow our own policies and programmes?

Yes. Case definitions, remediation options, grievance routing and benchmarks follow your policies. Modules switch on as you need them, and anything specific, we prototype with you in the Nursery.