Ivorian Cocoa Bean Farmers Expect to Die Poor, Despite Rising Demand for the Raw Material
A farmer carefully sorts cocoa beans during harvest in an African cocoa farm, highlighting resourcefulness and agricultural importance.
More chocolate than ever is eaten globally, but a flagship programme launched in 2019 that promised a living wage to growers in top cocoa producers Ivory Coast and Ghana has left many worse off, data and interviews with growers, traders and industry experts show. Eleven industry experts blamed the situation on surpluses that have kept cocoa cheap globally, as well as on chocolate companies, global commodity buyers and intermediaries in the field seeking to protect margins. They cited inherent flaws in the government programme, including a lack of supply management. The failure of the living wage scheme to boost or even protect farmer incomes is a blow to global efforts to make the production of chocolate bars more ethically sound after years of promises to purge the industry of child labour, poverty and rampant deforestation.
SOURCE: REUTERS