Organic and Fair Trade Earth

June’s a big month. Kids are out of school (and hopefully into the fresh outdoors). Dads are celebrated. It’s National Candy month. There’s World Environment Day, World Oceans Day, and World Day Against Child Labour on June 12 which is especially relevant for the chocolate industry.

The Dark side of Chocolate

One of the reasons Lisa and I founded Premium Organic Cafe was to help shine light on not only the health benefit, but also the moral and ethical responsibility of nurturing ourselves with organic and fair trade food. This month, the focus on our global love and consumption of chocolate brings the issue of child slavery and labor to the forefront.

$98 billion market.....

Chocolate was an $83 billion a year business in 2010 and is expected to grow to $98.3 billion in 2016 (“Global Chocolate, Cocoa Beans, Lecithin, Sugar and Vanilla Market by Market Share, Trade, Prices, Geography Trend and Forecasts 2011-2016,” Markets and Markets.) Unfortunately, cocoa farmers’ portion of this massive market is so low they live below the absolute poverty level. (photo credit Nile Sprague, spraguephoto.com)

yet cocoa growers live below absolute poverty level

Unfinished beans command a fraction of the value of processed chocolate. Ghanaian cocoa farmers are getting about 77 cents per pound, where a high-end maker selling 2-ounce chocolate bars for $9 apiece earns $72 per pound. Even your basic $2 bar brings in $16 per pound, about 20 times what the farmer gets. According to the Fairtrade Foundation, cocoa growers in West Africa earn, on average, about 6 percent of the final cost of a chocolate bar. (source: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-human-cost-of-stuff/a-sweeter-deal-for-cocoa-farmers)

80% to 90% of cocoa comes from small, family-run farms between 5 – 10 acres. More than 70% of the world’s supply of cocoa comes from two countries nestled on the southern shore of West Africa: Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. There, whole communities are dedicated to growing the crop that is lucrative for governments and international traders, but brings below-poverty wages for the farmers who produce it. Low wages mean farmers cannot hire the labor needed to harvest the crop, and perpetuates the child trafficking and worst forms of child labor that have plagued the industry. (photo credit Nile Sprague, spraguephoto.com)

Children are exposed to chemicals, long working hours, and the denial of a decent education. Low prices in the cocoa industry have left smallholder farmers with impoverished incomes and with no choice but to pull their children from school and have them help on the plantation.

With low educational access and attendance, families in the cocoa sector are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty. Cocoa producers have little bargaining power against the few large multinational companies that control the supply chain and ultimately determine the livelihoods of farming families. (source: International labor rights forum http://www.laborrights.org /industries/cocoa)

(source: The Cocoa Barometer 2012 Report, The VOICE Network)

Majority of child laborers are 5-11 years old

There are approximately 168 million child laborers in the world, accounting for almost 11% of the child population as a whole and 70% of child laborers work in agriculture (source: International Labour Organization, a UN agency).

Children in the 5-11 years age group account for by far the largest share of all child labourers: 73 million, or 44 per cent of the total child labour population. (source: International Labour Office “Making Progress Against Child Labour. Global Estimates and Trends 2000-2012.”)

Children are trafficked into cocoa farms in Ivory Coast. “At night it was difficult to sleep because of the pains in my body, and then we had to get up at 04.00 and work until 16.00. I was always tired.” said Abdoulaye from Burkina Faso, who worked on the cocoa farm for several months at the age of nine. (photo credit Nile Sprague, spraguephoto.com)

Major cocoa producing countries include:

Africa – 68%

-- Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon

Asia/Oceania – 17%

-- Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea

· Americas – 15%

-- Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia

The top producing cocoa regions account for a large number of the world’s child laborers. (Note: Numbers incorporate all methods of labor, not just cocoa.)

How can you help? Through your wallet.

The poorest and most vulnerable of the world grow and harvest the world’s chocolate. By choosing to eat chocolate certified by the leading watchdog organizations, you help change this statistic. While there are numerous companies who provide certification, a main requirement across each of them is that no child labor was involved. The top three organizations are Fairtrade International, Rainforest Global Alliance, and UTZ CERTIFIED but look for any of these logos on cacao products.

Certified cocoa accounted for less than 5% of the world’s cocoa volume in 2005. However, due to the outcry from consumers and demand for accountability, the leading global cocoa procurer companies have taken steps to increase this. Some projections indicate that 25%-40% of the global cocoa production will be ethically certified cocoa by the year 2020.

yes, but....

Whether the top companies will walk their talk and achieve that goal remains to be seen. Deadlines have been missed and some companies have not been transparent with their data or have not disclosed it. The cocoa community also recognizes the critical call for change as cocoa farmers have an average age of 55 and inherited plots. Their children are abandoning the farms for better means. Cocoa is a delicate plant and grows in a specific band around the equator. If the current situation isn’t fixed, a shortage of cocoa is predicted by 2020.

Initiatives are in place that are achieving success for cocoa farmers and are reducing the number of child laborers. A big reason for this success is the media reports that uncovered the child slavery in chocolate issue and subsequent pressure from consumers. If you have the opportunity to voice your opinion to the global cocoa companies to make good on their pledges, do it. Your voice counts.

The Cocoa Barometer 2012 Report provided by The VOICE Network - a network of European NGOs and Trade Unions, working together to address sustainability issues in the global cocoa supply chain – shows how much certified cocoa (in green) was procured global leaders in 2011 and their pledged amounts for 2015.