From the Experts: Child Labor and the Cocoa Industry

Edward Millard, the Rainforest Alliance’s director of sustainable landscapes, reflects on the causes of child labor in the West African cocoa industry and the tools necessary to combat it.

The Rainforest Alliance believes that independent certification programs, like Rainforest Alliance Certified™, are central to delivering solutions to economic, environmental and social issues that are endemic within the cocoa sector, including child labor.

Cocoa Certification by the Numbers

How do we know our work with cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire is improving lives, lands and livelihoods? 

We commissioned the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) to conduct on-the-ground research in the West African country. In 2009, and again in 2011, COSA scientists collected data at Rainforest Alliance Certified and non-certified farms, representing a total of 452 farm visits. Their research revealed an assortment of changes on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in the world’s largest cocoa producing nation:

Want to learn more? Meet an Ivoirian farmer benefiting from Rainforest Alliance certification.

Hope in the Shade of Cocoa Trees

Ouedraogo Boureima was just four years old when, in 1985, his family left their village in Burkina Faso and walked across the border and into Côte d’Ivoire. They brought only the clothes on their backs, two sheep, four cooking pots, food for travel and a picture of their ancestors. The family traveled south and then west, finally settling in the rural community of Blolequin, where Ouedraogo’s father declared that he would support them as a cocoa farmer.

Ouedraogo’s family planted and then cultivated cocoa trees, and they built a new life for themselves. Ouedraogo came of age and eventually joined his father in the cocoa fields. Then in 2011, the Second Ivoirian Civil War broke out, leaving Blolequin in shambles with dozens killed, and forcing the family to retreat to Burkina Faso. Last year, as a measure of peace began to settle back over the land, Ouedraogo returned to Côte d’Ivoire.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” explains Ouedraogo Boureima.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” he explains. Now 31, Ouedraogo is carrying his father’s dream forward. It is a dream shared by more than 4.5 million people in Côte d’Ivoire, who depend on cocoa for their livelihoods. But as the Boureima family knows well, cocoa is an industry fraught with challenges, including price volatility, farmer exploitation, low wages and child labor, in a country plagued by political instability.

Despite the war’s end, political unrest continues to threaten Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa crop—already under pressure from pests, fungi, unsustainable farming techniques, climate change and drought—while global cocoa demand climbs steadily at a rate of three percent a year. At the same time, increasingly low yields raise concerns about future cocoa shortages and hurt the incomes and aspirations of millions of Ivoirians.

In 2008, the Rainforest Alliance began to introduce socially, environmentally and economically sustainable practices to farmers in Côte d’Ivoire—helping farmers increase their yields and their profits, and improve their lives. Ouedraogo is one of tens of thousands of farmers in Côte d’Ivoire who have benefited from Rainforest Alliance certification.

In an effort to improve his family’s life, in 2011 he joined a cooperative of cocoa farmers working toward Rainforest Alliance certification. Many farmers in his community were initially skeptical of certification. The country’s history of violence and political unrest colored their perception; over the years, they had been approached by a number of NGOs offering aid, but in the end, they all failed to deliver on their promises. Desperate to support his family, Ouedraogo was willing to accept the possibility that certification would not pan out.

Ouedraogo Boureima (third row center, yellow shirt) with Rainforest Alliance staff and other members of the COABOB co-op.

Just one year later, Ouedraogo’s understanding of certification has evolved substantially. As with many farmers, it was initially talk of a price premium that attracted him. In actuality, certification does not guarantee a price premium, but higher yields resulting from the techniques promoted by the Rainforest Alliance have improved farmers lives. A 2012 study found that net income on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Côte d’Ivoire was 291 percent higher than on noncertified farms.

As Ouedraogo and other farmers have learned, however, higher incomes are just one aspect of the complex journey to sustainability. Now in its second year, Ouedraogo’s Rainforest Alliance Certified cooperative COABOB is composed of 798 farmers who have a much deeper understanding of the challenges and benefits of certification. It was a struggle, for example, for many farmers to accept certification requirements that prohibit the use of toxic agrochemicals and encourage the use of alternative methods to control pests and add nutrients to the soil. With decreasing yields, many farmers felt pressure to increase their use of pesticide and chemical fertilizers on cocoa trees “It takes the Rainforest Alliance training and an outside perspective to understand that these chemicals are not long term solutions,” explains Ouedraogo.

Certification has led to other on-farm improvements, as well. Through his work with the Rainforest Alliance, Ouedraogo learned to prune his trees (cutting away old, dead and diseased branches) and put a mixture of wood shavings and composted cocoa pods around the base of each cocoa tree (helping to keep the soil around the trees’ roots moist).  He has also planted a variety of trees on his farm to protect his cocoa from the sun and enrich his soil.

This year, Ouedraogo noticed that his trees had sprouted new, healthy growth. He is hopeful that his harvest will be larger as a result. If other certified farms in the country are any indication, he will get his wish. Certified cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire have produced 72 percent more than their uncertified counterparts.

“I am starting to believe that I can think long term, something that I have never been able to do before,” Ouedraogo says. “I want to practice farming techniques that will allow my son to have a future on this same land.” He feels hopeful knowing that there are consumers demanding certified products. “There are people who believe in what I am doing,” he says, smiling.  “This makes the world feel smaller and gives me pride in my work.”

Thanks to commitments from leading brands like Mars, Unilever, Kraft and Hershey, the Rainforest Alliance’s certification work in Côte d’Ivoire has experienced remarkable growth. Over the last six years, 85,000 Ivorian farms covering more than one million acres (410,000 hectares) have become Rainforest Alliance Certified.  Companies now recognize that environmental, social and economic sustainability are essential to securing the global cocoa supply—and that Rainforest Alliance certification can help to accomplish these goals.

In West Africa, A Cocoa Farmer Learns to Love Sustainability

We asked Peter Dabanka—a Ghanaian cocoa farmer with a love for sustainable farming—to share his story in honor of Valentine’s Day. He writes…

I have lived for over 30 years in Nyame Nnae in Ghana. I came as a migrant farmer from Kumasi to start cocoa farming. However, I stopped a few years later when I realized the sale of the yield from my farm was not profitable enough to make a living as a young man. My father advised me to come back home and continue from where I left off, so long as it could put food on the table.

I did not believe that cocoa farming alone could be possible, so I engaged in the sale of pesticides and pharmaceuticals and got myself hired as a purchasing clerk for a licensed buying company. I still could not achieve the kind of income I wanted.

Today, Peter earns a decent living from his cocoa trees–something he once thought impossible.

My sale of pharmaceuticals and my basic dispensary services gave me the name ‘doctor’ in my village. Back then, I was the only doctor that many people in the community had access to, and I treated many children and adults.

However, my role as our community doctor came to an end with the introduction of a sustainable cocoa project, which resulted in the building of a community health planning services facility for the region. This indeed came as relief to me and the other farmers in our cluster.

Chocolate giant Mars Inc. is working on establishing sustainable cocoa as the industry standard. A recent effort brought together a coalition of groups whose goal was to ensure future supplies of cocoa and a responsible approach to its production so that communities in which it is produced can thrive. Through its Sustainable Cocoa Initiative, Mars has made a commitment to source 100 percent of its cocoa from sustainable sources [including Rainforest Alliance Certified farms], by 2020.

Peter is one of many farmers benefiting from Mars’ commitment to source 100% of its cocoa from sustainable sources by 2020.

Nyame Nnae was one of the communities to benefit from Mars’s emphasis on sustainable cocoa. I approached it just as I did with all intervention projects, thinking “just be a part of it, who knows, they may give out fertilizers and pesticides and even loans.” That was the extent of my expectations.

They started with training on good agricultural practices, but I had great doubts if the practices they were talking about really could lead to increased productivity. I started losing interest when my aim for joining the group wasn’t coming in to fruition. To my surprise, the demonstration farm showed good results, so I decided to apply the practices to one of my farms and it worked too; I quickly extended the practices to my other farms. I then encouraged my wife, Esther Amoako, to volunteer and take part in the training of trainers program to become a lead farmer and trainer for the community.

In two years, my farms that [once] yielded 40 bags of cocoa produced 145 bags. I used part of the money from the sale to invest in building a six-bedroom apartment in Kumasi –a project that only took me three years to complete thanks to this initiative!

Esther Amoako introduces a group of farmers to sustainable production practices.

I now see cocoa farming as a business and have decided to do as much to maximize my income while cutting down cost. That is why I am replanting one of my farms that is over 25-years-old. I have gone back into swine production, an enterprise I quit some years ago. Trainings from Farmer Business School sessions revealed I was simply not doing things right. Starting with one male and two female, I now have about 20 animals in just two years. Part of their feed comes from the pod placenta that was considered waste from cocoa.

As the current chief farmer in my area, I motivate young people to take up farming as a full time business because it is profitable when done the right way. With the support of training on sustainable practices and implementation, farmers can increase production and elevate their income just like I am telling you now.

My wife Esther is not only a mother, but also a trainer and lead farmer. Like me, she feels so proud of these sustainable cocoa initiatives and how they have enabled us to develop the capacity of communities to identify and improve our social, economic and environmental situation now and for the future.

Today, Peter’s cocoa farm is Rainforest Alliance Certified. Explore the results of a new study from the Committee on Sustainability Assessment to learn more about the benefits of certification for farmers in West Africa. 

25 Things You Might Not Know About Chocolate

It’s amazing melted and mixed with milk. It’s the perfect addition to cake and cookie batter. It’s divine sweetened with a little sugar. We know it’s delicious (in all its forms), but there’s more to chocolate than great taste. A few facts to nourish your mind…

1. On Valentine’s Day, more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold in the United States.
2. Chocolate (really, the cocoa beans it is made from) grows on theobroma cacao trees and — like coffee – can flourish under the shade of the forest canopy and support biodiversity.
3. A cocoa pod contains an average of about 42 beans; it takes some 270 beans to make a pound of chocolate.
4. Experts predict that there will be a “modest” cocoa shortage of about 100,000 tons over the coming year.
5. According to the Greeks,  theobroma is literally the “food of the gods.”
6. Côte d’Ivoire produces more cocoa than any other nation in the world; the industry supports an estimated 4.5 million people in the West African country.
7. Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa farms conserve forests and wildlife while ensuring that workers are provided with decent wages and safe living and working conditions, and their families have access to health care and education.
8. In South American civilizations, cocoa beans were once used as a form of currency and only eaten as their quality degraded. According to ancient records, a horse cost 10 beans and a rabbit could be purchased for four beans.
9. Approximately 70 percent of the world’s cacao comes from West Africa (including Côte d’Ivoire). Cacao trees grow across the lowland tropical regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas.
10. The Mayans were the first to grind up cacao seeds and use them to concoct a drink.
11. Cocoa is farmed on more than 28,000 square miles (18 million acres or 7.5 million hectares) worldwide. That’s an area about the size of Ireland or the state of South Carolina.
12. The word chocolate probably comes from the Aztec word “xocolatl” meaning “bitter water.”
13. About 40 million people worldwide, including five million farmers, rely on cocoa for their livelihoods. Most cocoa is grown by “smallholder” farmers who own one- or two-acre plots of land.
14. Cocoa was introduced in Spain as early as the 1600’s, but it wasn’t until 1765 that the first chocolate factory was established in the United States.
15. Like turkey, chocolate contains tryptophan — a chemical that the brain uses to produce serotonin, which can generate feelings of ecstasy or love.
16. There are Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa farms in 14 countries: Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania and Togo.
17. Chocolate (especially the dark variety) is rich in antioxidants.
18. The average American eats about 12 pounds of chocolate per year.
19. In the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” chocolate syrup is used as fake blood.
20. This year, 47 percent of US consumers will exchange Valentine’s Day candy – and 75 percent of that candy will be chocolate.
21. The Rainforest Alliance is working with farmers in Ghana to produce “climate-friendly” cocoa that benefits workers and communities financially while helping them to adopt practices that curb climate change and mitigate its impacts.
22. Two out of three women say choosing their own chocolate is just as personal a decision as selecting their own lipstick.
23. A cacao tree takes five years to produce its first beans.
24. A COSA study on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire found that (compared to their uncertified neighbors) Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa farmers produced more cocoa per hectare; earned a higher net income; implemented more soil and water conservation measures; and were more committed to community engagement.
25. Emperor Montezuma is said to have sipped 50 golden goblets of hot chocolate – dyed red and spiced with chili peppers – daily.

Is your mouth watering yet? Visit Shop the Frog to find brands and stores offering Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate goodies; enter to win a basket full of Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate; and watch our new Valentine’s Day video.