Consumer

Children of cocoa

July 3, 2018

I cocoa children continue to feed the ‘
supply-chain
‘ of chocolate For other children. Colonialism has only changed form, from chains to bars.

Child exploitation

in agriculture

World day against child labor, June 12, is essentially worth updating the data. According to the FAO child exploitation is on the rise and there are now at least 152 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 engaged in labor, indeed daily slavery. Of these, three out of four, no less than 108 million, are exploited in the agricultural sector.

The numbers of child labor, which are confirmed in the studies of ILO (International Labour Organization), continue to grow. Especially among populations living in poverty. And they feed global supply chains, however, in the production of palm oil And cocoa especially.

The map of the phenomenon, if ever there was a need, once again confirms the deepening inequalities between the Global South and North. Where Africa and Asia are the continents with the highest percentage of children engaged in field labor, America and Europe benefit.

According to data from the ILO.

, more than 74 million children are exposed to the serious risks associated with exposure to

agrotoxics

and pesticides (as confirmed by recent UNICEF study

). As well as in the mines. From caves in Cambodia to tea plantations in Zimbabwe, via palm and cocoa monocultures. Minors deported to plantations with the unfortunately vain hope of a better life.

Children of cocoa

Avor Coast

me
and Ghana are the leading planetary cocoa producers, 60 percent of global production. And these are the countries where the trafficking of minors-arriving from several West African countries-to harvest cocoa beans takes place.

The multinational giants
rule the supply chain, including through their subsidiaries. Barry Callebaut and Cargill realize 50 percent of the semi-finished product (cocoa paste) globally, to supply Nestlé, Mars, Mondelez, Ferrero, Hershey, ADM, Meiji. Operations that enable raw material to be purchased at costs incompatible with fair workers’ compensation, of course, are left to the middlemen.

Big Food

grinds out profits this way
in the clear, without getting their hands dirty with exploitation that is purposely tertiarized. Declines all responsibility with respect to the serious violations of the human rights fundamental, providing, if anything, to bamboozle the public with some minor ‘front’ operations. The international agencies of the rest merely collect the data, and consumer associations in turn remain harmless.

Raw material prices are set each year by the governments of the (former?) French and British colonies, which pay farmers the difference between these prices and the quotation recognized by the market. But they must not remain parks, to avoid reprimands from the International Monetary Fund, which oversees the solvency of their debts to banks in the Global North. So this year Abidjan cut the price by 30 percent from the previous year (in anticipation of an 18 percent increase in harvests).

On a global market of cocoa and cocoa products worth $124 billion only $9 billion (i.e., 7.3 percent) goes to those who produce the raw material, 28 to producers of semi-finished products (cocoa paste), 87 to those who make the finished products. This explains why only one ‘world day’ is dedicated to child labor, which moreover falls in the middle of the annual cocoa campaign. No celebration, for the little fava bean pickers.

Child exploitation in our spending

How much does our food spending affect On child exploitation, as well as the abuse of workers’ rights in more general terms? More than we unsuspecting consumAtors might imagine, he cautions. Oxfam In his recent report, ‘‘Ripe for Change,”‘.

The label does not narrate anything about these abuses, and it is therefore essential to rely on those brands that can offer effective guarantees. Such as certifications, such as SA 8000

e

Fair Trade

. Or even self-certifications from industry groups that can be trusted as being able to demonstrate factual news consistent with the indispensable guarantee of respect for the inviolable rights of children.

‘Let me play just for fun, without anything else, just for fun. Without understanding, without learning, without needing to socialize. Just a child with other children. Without the adults always near, without plan, without judgment with an end but no beginning, with a tail but no head just for pretense, just for party. Only by flame burning by fire. Let me play just for fun‘. (Dorothy Law Nolte)

Big Food
conversely relies on greenwashing, a ‘green tint’ dictated by marketing for commercial purposes only but devoid of any substance. As long as the consumAtors will allow it. Until when?

Dario Dongo and Jessica Trombin

Notes

(1) Two of the eight Sustainable Development Goals would be said to elude the aforementioned giants. The elimination of poverty and the achievement of universal primary education, among others

(2) 2015 data. Source Bloomberg Business Forum, NYC, September 2017