two words that should never be related, but this is a sad reality.
it's no secret that i'm a fan of chocolate.
what you may not know is that the majority percentage of the worlds chocolate is produced on the ivory cost of africa, and in large part the labor is provided by child slave labor.
i'm not going to repeat allot of information here, but do a google search for "chocolate slavery" and you'll find lots of information on the topic.
so what can you do to make a difference? how can we change a multi billion dollar industry?
first thing you should know, you vote with your dollars, every time you buy something you are saying "i approve of this item, keep making it exactly the same" corporations could care less about letters/phone calls/petitions. what they care about is money.
at this point you're possibly saying something along the lines of, "i'm just one consumer, the small amount i spend isn't impacting anything"
and this is possibly true on it's own, but through being conscious of what you spend your money on, and also telling others why, educating others, then we can start to make a difference. knowledge is power, the more people that are knowledgeable about their purchase decisions, the more power we have, the more influence we have.
so a buying guide for chocolate:
forget the major brands like Mars, Hershey's and Nestle. they could care less about the fact that they're the reason for the slavery.
instead, look for organic chocolate, it's better for you, often tastes better, and is slave free.
the other option, look for fair trade certified. 
fair trade guarantees that the producer was paid a fair price for their goods.
and fair trade isn't just chocolate, make a effort to buy fair trade as much as possible, check out their site for more info. www.fairtradecertified.org
if you can find fair trade certified organic chocolate, that's some good stuff.
so in the future, think twice before grabbing that candy bar, you can make a difference in the world, simply make knowledgeable decisions, and share information with the people you know.
and if you want to buy me chocolate, you know what to look for.
UPDATE: read the comments for some additional info from a guest poster and myself.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
chocolate slavery
Posted by mark at 2:07 AM Permalink
Labels: change the world, chocolate, life
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2 comments:
I was dismayed to read your posting as the chocolate/cocoa industry has been focused on making a difference in the lives of children in cocoa farming communities.
As you know, cocoa is grown on more than two million family-run farms in West Africa. On the vast majority of these farms, children help out as members of the family. Without question, there are serious issues: children helping out instead of attending school, child injuries due to kids undertaking unsafe tasks.
Through organizations such as the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), cocoa farming families around the world are provided with programs that preserve the cocoa farming family structure in which children help out and learn from their parents, while at the same time ensuring that this “helping out” doesn’t injure the child or interfere with their education.
WCF-supported programs are helping cocoa farmers earn more (25 to 55 percent) for their crop through more effective, sustainable farming techniques and co-operative development. The WCF’s “farmer field schools” approach empowers farmers through education – creating lasting, widespread change.
We do not know of any system (fair trade or anything else) that can guarantee that their chocolate was produced without any type of abusive labor practice.
In September 2001, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) along with the chocolate/cocoa industry signed an agreement, known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which laid out a series of steps aimed at eliminating the worst forms of child labor and forced adult labor from cocoa growing in West Africa. An unprecedented effort, the Protocol marked the first time that an entire industry stepped forward and worked with governments, civil society and other stakeholders to address the worst forms of child labor and forced adult labor in its supply chain.
While there is still much to be done, the industry has made progress.
For example, there will be a certification system in place in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana (the world’s two largest cocoa producers), across an area that produces at least 50 percent of their cocoa by July 1, 2008. In both countries, the data collection element of the certification system has been completed and reports detailing the preliminary results of these surveys by the respective countries were released June 27.
I would encourage you to learn more about the WCF (www.worldcocoa.org) and the nearly 70 chocolate companies and trade associations (including fair trade companies and my employer – the National Confectioners Association) who support the organization.
Susan Smith
National Confectioners Association
susan,
thank you for visiting my little blog, i didn't know my blog had that widespread of a reach, i'm curious how you found it since my stats simply show you linking directly to this post, not browsing to it like most visitors.
anyways, i apologize for forgetting to mention that the chocolate industry has been taking steps to help fix this problem. you'll notice i didn't post a lengthy article, i was simply sharing some information i found with my friends who read my blog, and encouraging them to go out and search and read about this topic for themselves.
to all readers of this blog,
you've now been made aware of some varied information about this topic, i suggest you go read for yourself, try the google search i suggested in the post, visit the website susan mentioned, and also google Harkin-Engel Protocol. you'll find lots of information about all this, how well the protocol has been followed, and some other things.
like the main point in my post said, become knowledgeable consumers, and make good decisions.
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