Bitter Chocolate

I recently heard about the unfair conditions that many people experience to bring us chocolate and it’s left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Chocolate comes from the cocoa bean. Most of the world’s cocoa is grown in West Africa – predominantly the Ivory Coast, and then Ghana, Nigeria and the Cameroon. The conditions for those working on cocoa farms are often terrible; poverty is extreme, hours long and tasks unsafe. In the Ivory Coast children and young men are also being sold or tricked into slavery. Child slaves are forced to work long hours, are underfed and kept in inhuman conditions – often locked in at night so they can’t run away.

Bitter Ingredients
A small number of multinational corporations control the cocoa market, exploiting the need of poor farmers to have an income – once the crop is grown a low price is better that no price. Exporters compete for sales by offering the lowest prices so that farmers inevitably have to pay their workers low wages. Cash cropping has replaced the diverse and locally sustaining farming of the past. This has resulted in the population being dependent on earning money from international markets, removing the independence of communities, and vulnerability of economic collapse due to natural disasters, pests and crop disease.

The Sweeter Side
Fair-trade cooperatives have been set up for cocoa growing in a number of countries. Fair-trade certification guarantees a fair price for cocoa and that workers receive a fair wage. It forbids the use of slave labour or children working if it interferes with their education or in dangerous conditions. Furthermore, money is paid to invest in developing the community and schools. We can buy fair-trade chocolate from Trade Aid and some health food stores.