Chocolate, oh sweet chocolate: The bitter truth

Irish people are the biggest chocolate consumers in the world, but cocoa farmers earn little more than the cost of a bar a day, writes Jim Clarken

WHEN money’s tight and hard to get, a pint of plain’s your only man, wrote Flann O’Brien.

But looking for relief from current struggles, more people are turning to chocolate than they are to stout in the downturn.

Even as consumer spending has shrunk, Irish people continue to eat more chocolate per head of population than any other country on Earth — 11.2kg of it — with the chocolate market now worth €583m and growing. It is expected to reach €631m by 2015.

We’re not the only ones who’ve turned to it in dark times.

Around the world, Mars, Mondelez (formerly Cadbury’s), and Nestlé, which control 40% of global cocoa market share between them, drove chocolate sales past $100bn (€76.7bn) for the first time in 2011.

However, a boom for producers has not translated into a better life for the more than 5.5m small-scale farmers who currently supply 90% of the cocoa used by major food and beverage companies.

Poverty and hunger among cocoa growers remains endemic.

Most smallholders and cocoa workers live below the poverty line, especially those in West Africa where 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown.

Farmers get just 3.2 % of the price of a chocolate bar, with a farmer in Ivory Coast earning $342 (€262) a year for his efforts, well below an average income in the country of $1,000.

In Nigeria, a cocoa farmer can earn as little as $612 a year, less than $2 per day. Yet Mars sells 1kg boxes of chocolates for as much as $26.45 — more than 10 times what a farmer in Nigeria makes for the same amount of cocoa.

Outside of Africa, hunger and malnutrition is rife in the cocoa-growing regions of Indonesia.

Stunting, where children are too short for their age as a result of poor diet and poor health circumstances, has reached an alarming 40% in the cocoa-growing areas of the country.

For the Love of Chocolate Gala Cocoa Couture Fashion show dress by the amazingly talented pastry chef @jsscwss pic.twitter.com/kPLJ1OfIhv

— Kell Bell (@Kel_Bell26) February 26, 2013

Things must change. And with consumers now demanding more information about the food they eat and how it is grown, there has never been a better time for them to do something about it.

By investing in and protecting the rights of cocoa farmers and workers, companies must work to secure their own supply chains and reputations while helping raise millions of people out of poverty.

Mars, Mondelez, and Nestlé have all made attempts in this direction in recent years through certifications such as Fairtrade and by increasing investments in select company programmes. Mars, for example, made an ambitious promise in 2009 to use 100% certified cocoa by 2020 and Nestle has committed to 100% certified sourcing.

Other attempts to increase the yields of cocoa farmers and reduce the incidents of child labour should also be applauded.

Yet serious questions remain about the efficacy of many of these initiatives.

Love chocolate? Read about women cocoa workers http://t.co/y1zgl8r3jU Petition http://t.co/UB6VJrC9ci #behindthebrands

— Oxfam Canada (@OxfamCanada) February 26, 2013

Serious questions have already been raised about the ability of these programmes to truly address child labour. According to the latest figures, almost 820,000 children in the Ivory Coast and more than 997,000 in Ghana were working on cocoa-related activities during a 12-month period in 2007 and 2008.

Child labour will only end when adult labourers in the field earn a wage from which they can feed their families. And if they continue to make less than $2 a day for their efforts, that will never happen.

An important step in that direction would be to focus on women on farms.

This is why Oxfam has launched the Behind The Brands campaign, which ranks the world’s 10 largest food and beverage companies on a range of issues, from how they treat women to the presence of child labour in their supply chains.

The issue of women is one of the most pertinent, as illustrated by how they are treated on cocoa farms.

In West Africa, women do nearly half of the labour on cocoa farms but own just a quarter of the land. This is important because when men own cocoa farms, women tend to be unpaid employees.

Increasing women’s incomes could have a profound impact on entire communities, as women are more likely than men to spend their income on improving the family’s health and nutrition.

In Ivory Coast, a study found that raising a woman’s salary by $10 would bring about the same positive impacts in child health and nutrition that would require a $110 increase in men’s income.

It could also lead to a boost in yields. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that just giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by up to 150m people

For all of these reasons, Oxfam is calling on Mars, Mondelez, and Nestlé to lead the way in forging equality for women in the cocoa industry and across the entire supply chain.

A growing taste for chocolate should not just benefit companies and their shareholders. It should be good news for the people who make the ingredients for their products too.

Holding on to our sweet tooth demands it.

*Jim Clarken is CEO of Oxfam Ireland