As you pass out treats to children in the U.S. who dress as ghosts and goblins on Halloween night you might be interested to know that cocoa farmers are finding ways to increase their incomes and provide better lives for their children.
Late last week Nestle, among the largest purchasers of cocoa beans in the world with operations in 32 countries, announced a “Cocoa Plan” to help improve cocoa farmer profitability and cocoa bean quality. The plan includes providing farmers with better varieties of cocoa trees, farmer education to help farmers become more profitable and buying co-ops to provide farmer services and allow group (more profitable) pricing for farmers. Nestle will invest $109 million in these ”sustainability initiatives” for the cocoa sector in the next decade.
To quote Nestle’s excellent new website on The Cocoa Plan, “Without farmers, there’d be no cocoa. Without cocoa, there’d be no chocolate. Cocoa farmers are the vital start-point and they can benefit considerably from our help.”
Nestle joins a growing list of companies making substantial commitments to cocoa farming. Mars has announced that the company has pledged to purchase 100,000 tons of sustainably grown certified cocoa by 2020. We did an earlier blog on Cadbury’s Fair Trade chocolate initiative in the U.K. where all Cadbury milk chocolate bars will be certified Fair Trade, increasing the amount of Fair Trade chocolate sold in the U.K. by 25 percent over 2008.
The World Cocoa Foundation last week announced the launch of its Cocoa Livelihoods program in Ghana. The program, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and 12 chocolate companies, is expected to improve the livelihoods of nearly 60,000 farmers in Ghana over the next 5 years. “Making real progress against hunger and poverty starts with small farmers,” explains Richard Rogers of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The goals of these initiatives are similar; they work to ensure that cocoa farm families have greater opportunities for economic development. Along the way they encourage access to quality education for children and adults. It’s a good goal for children of cocoa farmers, farmers themselves, the cocoa companies and consumers of chocolate everywhere.
Cocoa Beans by Nestlé.
6:20 pm on October 31st, 2009
Thank you for including this update on improving conditions for cocoa farmers. I try to purchase fair trade products, but look forward to a day when all cocoa is produced “fairly.” As a person who raises most of her own food, I understand just how hard the cocoa farmers work (and how poorly they have traditionally been compensated).