Fair trade cocoa
[1][2] Companies that use fair trade certified cocoa to create products can advertise that they are contributing to social, economic, and environmental sustainability in agriculture.
In the 1990s, exactly 1 percent of the world's cocoa was produced on small, family managed farms, primarily in West Africa and Latin America.
The Dutch foundation has now incorporated itself into Fairtrade International (FLO), a nonprofit organization with 25 member countries that use fair trade certification labels.
[4] In 2001, the issue of forced labour in cocoa production was brought to the public's attention by a series of articles published in the United States by Sudarsan Raghavan, Sumana Chaterjee, and the Knight Ridder news agency.
Noting that the United States has laws against importing goods produced using slave labor, Congressman Eliot Engel and Senator Tom Harkin proposed to enact a "slave-free" label for chocolate.
"[5] A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa".
That puts them well below the World Bank's new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if the 13% rise in the price of cocoa the previous year is factored in.
And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies' newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ...
The producers supplying the U.S. fair trade cocoa are located in Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Panama and Peru.
[13] In Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the two largest contributors of chocolate in the world,[14] farmers will make as little $0.50 per day and the majority of their income is dependent on cocoa farming.
[18] By increasing their wages through Fair Trade practices, younger generations are encouraged to stay and the industry can continue to produce.
These additional funds allow cocoa farming communities to attain programs that create better access to health care and education, support women, and protect the environment.
[21] As a result, women are unable to get loans or a line of credit to increase the quality of their crops and the productivity of their trees through investments in equipment.
[24] After the 2010 presidential election, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo alleged corruption in the voting process and refused to cede power to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner.
Although the environmental standards for fair trade certification vary by organization, they all include sustainable irrigation practices, crop rotation, reducing carbon emissions, improving biodiversity, prohibiting GMO crops, safe use of only legal pesticides and proper hazardous waste disposal.
[27] As the workers live in poverty, often pesticide and herbicide treatment on the cocoa plants are done without proper or any protective gear.
Many Fair Trade certifiers also encourage environmental sustainability and transition to organic farming while demanding safe working conditions for farmers.
Founded in 2006, Theo Chocolate was the first bean-to-bar, Fair Trade and organic certified company in the United States.
[35] Endangered Species Chocolate continues to guarantee that its cocoa farmers in the Conacado Co-op are receiving a fair wage.
This could lead to a moral hazard of saying the company is implementing Fair Trade practices, charging premium prices, but in actuality, not paying higher wages to farmers.
In 2017, Cadbury withdrew from its fair trade scheme under the Fairtrade mark and instead, with its parent company Mondelez, launched its own Cocoa Life programme.
[39] The abandonment of the fairtrade foundation certification by Cadbury was initially panned by critics, who thought the change could confuse customers.
[14] Carol Off, author of Bitter Chocolate: Investigating The Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet, argues that the only solution to the issue of abusive child labor practices in cocoa production is to pay farmers a price at which they can employ adult workers.
The report suggested that it would be an uphill battle to improve the situation: According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that's published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢.
That puts them well below the World Bank's new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
