Fairtrade Chocolate

Bitter reality of the cocoa industry

For most of us, chocolate is a sweet indulgence. But for many cocoa farmers, the reality of the chocolate industry is anything but sweet.

Chocolate comes from the cocoa bean, which can only grow between 15 degrees north or south of the equator and over 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is grown in tropical West Africa.

Over 10 million people in West Africa are dependent on cocoa farming for an income, but the work is labour intensive and the rewards unreliable. Cocoa prices have fluctuated significantly over the last few decades and many farmers are struggling to earn enough from cocoa farming to meet their families’ needs.

Most villages lack basic services such as clean water and education. Villagers often have to walk for several hours a day to collect water and often this water is dirty, contributing to the spread of disease.

In some cases, low incomes mean the children of farmers need to work in order to help the family make ends meet. As well as being deprived of an education, children are often engaged in dangerous work, such as using machetes and applying toxic pesticides. A 2002 survey by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture found over a quarter of a million children engaged in hazardous tasks in cocoa farming in the Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria.

Slave labour and cocoa farming

Media reports in 2000 and 2001 exposed an even more shocking side to the cocoa industry – slavery. There are numerous accounts of children and young men who have been sold or tricked into slavery by the promise of a decent job. In reality they have been trapped, working long hours without pay with brutal punishment meted out to those who try to escape. Food giant Nestlé is currently being sued for alleged involvement in child trafficking and slavery in the Ivory Coast.

In 2001, the chocolate industry in the US and Europe finally acknowledged the use of slave labour and the worst forms of child labour on cocoa farms and made a commitment to develop and implement a system of monitoring, certification and independent verification to eliminate them by July 2005 under the Harkin-Engel Protocol.

But the system is still in early stages of development and the industry has extended its deadline to 2008. And the industry is still failing to address the underlying problem of low incomes for cocoa farmers. In the absence of fair, stable prices, cocoa farmers will have no choice but to continue using the cheapest labour available.