That is why you are about to be able to make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives.
A few weeks ago, my friends Jade stated that she wants to become an ethical and moral consumer. I agreed that this would be nice, and we chatted a minute about how easy it sounds, but how in reality, it takes some effort on our parts. Most of the products you and I buy at the store are after all, not ethically made. Morally, I cannot say as to how they have been made, because that is a personal preference, but more on that later.
Jade said, that since buying ethical product is a huge change to make, she was going to start small: no more buying unethically made chocolate.
After she told me this, I asked a rather stupid question. The first thing that came out of my mouth was "forever?"
After being told that yes, she was going to do it forever, I decided to do it too. Now I have dabbled in the art of buying ethically made things, but I really had not idea what it really meant to buy ethically made chocolate when I agreed to this "forever" change.
Through quite a but of reading, I found that the only way to truly know if chocolate has been produced ethically, and by ethically, I mean not using child labor, not using any type of forced labor, and paying the farmers fair living wages so their farm may be sustainable, is to buy products that have been Fairtrade certified.
A few facts:
- Coco is produced in over 30 developing countries. This business supports over 14 million people. 90% of coco is grown on small family farms.
- In the market, companies buy coco in bulk orders of at least 10 tons. These small farmers may not even produce 1/2 ton in a year. Because of this, they are forced to go to a middleman who, because of a lack of communication between farmers and regulation enforcement, can give the farmer just about any price he wants. The prices they receive many times do not even cover production.
- 43% of the world's coco comes from the Ivory Coast, where there is widespread child slavery.
After reading these staggering facts, I wanted to know what fairtrade chocolate actually did for the farmer. So I read, a lot.
I found out that the Fairtrade system alleviates these abuses. The Fairtrade certified farmer does not use child labor and pays his workers fair wages. The farmer in turn in paid the Fairtrade Minimum Price, which is calculated to be able to cover the cost of sustainable production. This allows the farmer to be able to support his family. If the world market price is above the Fairtrade Minimum Price (which seldom happens), the farmer is paid the world market price. Fairtrade standards restrict use of chemicals, which encourages sustainable agriculture methods.
Doesn't this sound great? You're probably thinking what I was, "there must be a catch." I'm going to lay it out for you: Fairtrade products, most of the time, cost a little bit more than products that are not made ethically.
There, I've said it. You have to make a choice. You can either save a dollar every time you buy chocolate or you can save the 14 million people that the coco industry supports.
So...what's it gonna be?
Maybe you won't decide now, but next time you're taking a bite into that creamy milk chocolate or that Reeses Cup or drinking some steamy hot coco on a cold winter day, ask yourself who made your chocolate?
(All information gotten from the Fairtrade International Website at http://www.fairtrade.net/cocoa.html and http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/resources/natural_resources_institute.aspx)
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