Future of Chocolate

 

Most major conglomerate chocolate companies we know today are not as innocent and protective of their workers as we think. The Mars company along with Cadbury and others state they do everything they can to prevent child labor and pay their workers a fair wages when in reality they push lobbyists in congress to prevent labor standards, fair trade from being implemented. To this day, many corporations still buy chocolate that is grown with the use of children and exploited labor. Fair trade was implemented to allow cacao to be grown for a fair price and prevent child labor.  Applying fair trade standards to major corporations has presented a challenge over the past 20 years. Many cacao farmers in Africa are still exploited with low wage labor that they are using to get by on a day to day basis. Fair trade is a recent movement to set a minimum wage and sell price for cacao to prevent cacao farmers from living on the breadline. Very few cacao farmers have been working with small companies who implement fair trade as many corporations offer alternative benefits to compete with fair trade. For the ones who have been working with fair trade, it has been beneficial for small cacao farmers. Fair trade first offers premiums for each ton of cacao purchased, it holds benefits for the communities where cacao is grown and it also puts pressure on major corporations to make a difference. 

People who are fair trade farmers received a premium for the cacao sold to them. In 2011, cacao farmers were given an additional one hundred and fifty dollars for the 2,242 dollars per tonne of cacao sold. This means for each ton of cacao sold they receive a premium benefit for that sale. Although, some would argue that this limit of benefits for example having a premium for the sale of cacao per ton would mean that there will be a reduction of cacao sold as it results in an increase in cacao price. Other farmers who do not use cacao are being undersold as they are not given the same price for the cacao, with fairtrade premium the farmers are given a higher price sold for each cacao ton resulting in more profit and usable currency for the farmer who can then also give back to the communities in which they are grown. 

The benefits for the communities from fairtrade premiums can be seen through the sales of merchandise such as school books bought by cacao farmers, or using that extra money to invest into the communities. Most of the money which is given to premium fair trade farmers re-invest in their communities. An example is Kuapa Kokoo who use the premiums they earn for cacao sold and invest in community projects. Some companies give out zero interest loans to sellers like Kuapa Kokoo who can use that money to re-invest into their farms. This also puts pressure on corporations who are incentivized to make a difference in their benefits of selling to them. 

Chocolate corporations are forced to add more attention to detail when competing with fair trade because if they do not many cacao farmers would transition to fair trade and that would hurt the profit earned by chocolate companies. Many cocoa farmers do not transition to fair trade because of the competition presented by major corporations. In addition, since the rise and seeing the transition of more cacao farmers signing up to partner with fair trade, this put in an incentive on major corporations who are seeking to keep their profitable relationship with exploited cacao farmers. As an alternative, corporations have been offering to farmers incentives in other ways besides cash, since fair trade has limits to what it can offer besides premiums, corporations have been offering school books, insecticide and even loan to compete with fair trade. This also put increasing pressure on companies like cadbury to start buying fairtrade beans, to show that they are against child labor. This puts extra pressure on Cadbury who now have to absorb the extra costs from fair trade beans to re-prioritizing from profits to public image. 

In conclusion, Fair trade allows cacao farmers to be given a fair over the breadline price for their cacao beans grown. Although fair trade is still not implemented by many cacao farmers due to the competition with big business, this gives chocolate a reason to put more care into the people they exploit by investing more into their communities by different means. By looking at the benefits of fair trade, the benefits for communities, and the pressure on corporations this allows cacao farmers to better improve their communities and not have to live on a red line where children are also forced to work to make a living. 

Bibliography: Ryan, Orla. Chocolate Nations Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa. London: Zed, 2011.