The world’s top two cocoa producers are asking that manufacturers pay its growers more.
In order to combat poverty among cocoa farmers in the $130 billion global chocolate sector, Ivory Coast and Ghana implemented the Living Income Differential policy in 2019.
Venance Producer of cocoa is Brou Kouadio. “The cocoa you requested is produced just for you,” he replies. However, you don’t purchase it for the sum you must pay.
“The premiums you have to give us, we don’t receive them, so it’s like stealing. You steal from us. The big groups steal from us. They don’t respect the contract and they don’t respect us, they don’t respect the farmers.”
Cocoa farmer, Julien Kouamé Konan, agrees.
“The Westerners who come to buy cocoa are getting rich,” he says.
“Meanwhile, we are suffering. We earn nothing. We suffer cultivating the fields, that’s why we ask the government to help us”
While the cost has been accounted for in the chocolate’s price, farmers should still receive around 6% of the market’s worth, but chocolate industry behemoths are working to take that back by placing pressure on premiums depending on the calibre of the cocoa beans.
The two nations have threatened to “prohibit access to plantations to carry out crop projections” and to “halt sustainability programmes” if the corporations do not abide by their promises by November 20.
Producer of cocoa Appoline Yao Ahou states: “I’m upset. I’m upset because farmers are working, but the local buyers don’t respect the price the government sets for a kilo of cocoa.
“As farmers, we don’t earn enough money while the cost of living has increased.”
Approximately half a dozen significant companies buy practically the whole crop from Ivory Coast. About 80% of this is sent to Europe.
