What are the working conditions of cocoa producers?
Children who work on cocoa plantations are exposed to hazards such as dangerous tools, dust, flames or smoke, chemicals, and/or physically demanding labor such as carrying heavy loads or spending many hours in the sun. Cocoa trees are grown on small, independent farms of fewer than 5 hectares.
What are fair trade conditions?
Fair Trade is a movement that aims for better trading conditions between developing countries and the developed world. It is based on a trading partnership between workers and producers that empowers farmers, guarantees stable prices, sustainability, and better working conditions.
What are some of the conditions that must be met for a product to be Fair Trade Certified?
100% of any ingredient that can be Fairtrade certified, must be Fairtrade certified. Any product may carry the FAIRTRADE Mark if more than 50% of its total ingredients (calculated by dry weight) are sourced from Fairtrade certified producer organizations.
What are the problems faced by cocoa farmers?
Challenges in the cocoa sector
- Poverty and inadequate living conditions. Most of the cocoa farming families live in extreme poverty.
- Child labor in cocoa.
- Deforestation and loss of biodiversity.
- The threat of climate change.
- Lack of access to finance and inadequate infrastructure.
Why are cocoa farmers poor?
Farmers are in poverty through lack of living income. A lack of a living income leads to unsustainable farming practices, including deforestation linked to cocoa farming, and the pernicious problems of irresponsible labour practices including child and forced labour.
How much money do cocoa farmers get paid?
The average cocoa farm will produce one or two tonnes of cocoa beans a year; one tonne is 16 sacks of cocoa. The average farmer will make between $1,400-$2,000 profit a year, at most about $5 a day, which will need to support 6-10 dependants.
Are cocoa farmers rich?
800,000 small scale cocoa farmers make up 60% of the country’s agricultural base. However, despite their importance to Ghana’s development, many cocoa farming families live in poverty. Cocoa farmers earn a per capita daily income of approximately USD $0.40-$0.45 on cocoa.
How much does a cocoa farmer make per day?
Cocoa farmers in Ghana make $1/day, while those in Côte d’Ivoire make around $0.78/day—both significantly below the extreme poverty line.
Is growing cocoa profitable?
As mentioned before, growing cocoa in India as a profitable crop is possible when inter-cropping is done scientifically. According to some calculations, a farmer can earn up to Rs 60,000 per acre of land along with coconut, from which he can earn Rs. 30,000 per acre.
How many chocolate bars does 1 kg of cocoa make?
You can also visit a chocolate maker in your area or their website and beg them to sell you a 3 kilos of cacao- this can cost about $20 US dollars per kilo but it will yield you about 30 bars, 50 grams each, 70% chocolate.
How many years does it take cocoa to grow?
After cocoa seeds are planted, it usually takes between three and five years to yield the first crop. Cocoa Hybrid varieties however can yield crops within two and three years. Most countries have two periods of peak production per year: A main harvest, and a smaller harvest.
Why do cocoa farmers earn so little for their cocoa beans?
The consequences of price volatility, together with increasing production costs, are economic insecurity and impoverishment for millions of cocoa farmers. With limited income and lack of information on market developments, the cocoa farmers and their families are the losers in a lucrative cocoa and chocolate industry.
Why is cocoa farming important?
Cocoa, Theobroma cacao , is a very important crop because it provides food, income, employment, industrial raw material and resources for poverty reduction [1]. Besides the provision of livelihood for millions of smallholder farmers, cocoa also provides raw material for the multibillion global chocolate industry.
How much money does a cocoa farmer get per chocolate bar?
On average, cocoa farmers earn just 6% of the final value of a bar of chocolate.
How much does a typical cocoa bean worker earn?
Fairtrade found average Ivorian cocoa farmer household income was $2,707 per year, with around $2,000 of income coming from cocoa, according to its survey of 3,202 Fairtrade certified farmers. This equates to total income of $0.93 per person a day.
Why is there an increasing demand for cacao?
Globally, cocoa bean grinding activities increased by 8% from the cocoa year 2016/2017 to 2018/2019, reaching a total of 4,750 thousand tonnes. This increase is fuelled by a growing demand for chocolates with higher cocoa content by the chocolate and food industry.
What is life like on a cocoa farm?
Most cocoa farmers live in extreme poverty with average cocoa farmer making about 80 cents a day. Growing cocoa is also really hard work. It is one of the few crops that is grown and harvested purely by hand. The big cocoa pods that contain the cocoa beans are hacked open using clubs or machetes.
Why is cocoa production increasing?
The growing demand for cocoa is driving deforestation in West Africa and other forest-rich areas.
Which country is the largest producer of cocoa in the world?
The Ivory Coast and Ghana are by far the two largest producers of cocoa, accounting for more than 50 percent of the world´s cocoa. In 2016, the Ivory Coast alone produced approximately 1.6 million metric tons of cocoa beans.