Sometime last year while I was purchasing from Imperfect Foods, I discovered Tony’s Chocolonely. It was this huge, delicious chocolate bar with a label that read “100% Slave Free.” That really spiked my interest, but I never looked into it. While watching the Netflix Series Rotten last night, I noticed episode 5 is called Bitter Chocolate. I stayed up way too late so I could get to that episode. Holy woah… The chocolate industry is seriously screwed up.
Chocolate is a sweet indulgence we often find ourselves enjoying… But, can you enjoy it knowing there are modern day slaves working the fields to create this treat? There are many steps in making chocolate, all starting with the cacao farmers. These farmers (60%) are most often found in Africa, not South America. Cacao farmers use only machetes to harvest the product. As we know, that’s a hell of a lot of work to produce 2 million pounds of beans a year. These people make less than $1.00 a day, working from sunup to sundown. We have the technology to change this, but why do that when you already have such cheap labor? The cacao is of no use to the people harvesting it. They can’t cook with it, have never once had a chocolate bar, but they have to work these fields because other job opportunities are slim picking. Two thirds (5.5 million workers, 30 million dependents) of people in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana work in the chocolate industry. Their entire government is based around harvesting cacao beans. They have no clean water, electricity, and no buildings to have school. The chocolate industry makes an estimated 100 billion dollars a year, you’d think they could spare the money to pay their suppliers more.
This poverty has led to crimes and deforestation. In 2000 it was exposed in a British documentary that over 30,000 children are being trafficked to work in West African cacao farms, not receiving any pay. The US got angry with this, but chocolate industry lobbyist convinced legislators that they’d have the child labor sorted out by 2005. The deadline was not met. There are still child slaves working the fields. The African government decided they must keep product moving, so nothing came of this. The pressure of the government & poverty lead to one solution – grow more. Because of this need, farmers took over the protected national parks to produce higher yields. They burned down ancient forest to replace it with cacao trees. The uncultivated ground is more fertile, and the land is free. Typically, cacao trees take 5 years before it produces. In these national parks the trees grow fruit in 2 years. 85% of forest lost to poverty driven by the chocolate industry. Out of 244 protected parks in West Africa, 200 of them are gone.
There is so much more to this industry than meets the eye, and more than I can type in one blog. Here’s how you can help – visit this link to find all sorts of knowledge on the industry. Within the link it suggests having Tony’s Chocolonely come speak to you & your class if you’re a teacher. You can write letters to congress, and obviously support their company and SLAVE FREE chocolate. Yes, it cost more. That’s because they pay fair wages for the product. And lastly, you can share this post and start the conversation with your friends and family.
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