Ivory Coast Cocoa Farmers Go on Strike (should we boycott?)

[expatriot]

We need to support these guys. The AFL-CIO should call for a boycott, etc.

Cocoa farmers across Ivory Coast went on strike Monday, holding back their crops to protest low retail prices and high export taxes. If the action is sustained it could affect the global chocolate industry.

The West African country is the world's top grower of cocoa beans, producing 40 percent of global output each year, according to government statistics, despite being split following a civil war.

"The strike is on ... we called on the farmers to hoard their beans," Koffi Kanga, a representative of the country's cocoa farmers association, said by telephone from San Pedro, Ivory Coast's second-largest cocoa port after the commercial capital of Abidjan.

The action comes days after authorities officially opened the harvesting season by announcing a retail price of 80 cents a kilogram, roughly 40 cents a pound. Cocoa association President Henri Amouzou said the farmers are seeking $1.15 a kilogram (57 cents per pound).

Union leaders said they planned to stop trucks carrying cocoa and other farm products such as papayas and bananas to Abidjan until the price is raised. However, trucks continued to arrive at the Abidjan port Monday, and it was not immediately clear if any export shipments had been delayed.

http://www.bdtonline.com/editorials/feeds/apcontent/apstories/apstorysection/D8KPTU980.xml.txt/resources_apstoryview

[Kagemusha]

1. Um, boycott Ivory Coast cocoa? And this helps the farmers how?

Just wondering...

[expatriot]

3. Um, like the grape boycott when the farmworkers went on strike

These farmers are holding back their cocoa from the middlemen who sell it, in turn to the corporate chocolate companies... there are only a few. They are huge conglomerates.

Just like you don't shop at a store whose workers are on strike, you don't buy chocolate when the cocoa farmers are on strike. It's Consumer Activism 101.

[Igel]

19. It lowers the price of cocoa to the consumer.

It makes the strike less effective, because it reduces the pressure placed on the middlemen--if they run short, they may make money in the short run, but it'll certainly cost them, and possibly make it profitable for other middlemen to enter the market, paying producers more money. In the case of the grape boycott, the boycott kept the producers still selling--most of them, by the way--from profiting, and (in principle, had it been extensive enough) would have depressed prices and hurt the producers severely. Here the producers don't want to sell; we hurt them by boycotting.

But this is a Catch-22. The Ivory Coast cocoa producers rely heavily on underage labor, essentially slavery: They 'buy' a kid's labor from the parents in exchange for taking over the costs of raising the kid. But then they ignore education, and work the kid hard.

Not all, but much cocoa is tainted; many, possibly most, cocoa produces in the Ivory Coast are not good guys. The boycott should have begun years ago.

There's no guarantee that higher prices would actually help the conditions of the underage near-slaves. But it might.

[truthisfreedom]

2. hmm. invest in chocolate now! 8^)

[BrotherBuzz]

4. How about supporting Venezuela's organic cocoa market during the strike?

The growers are earning $7.00 a kilo for their product. An honest price for an honest product.

Venezuela's chocolate revolution

By Greg Morsbach
BBC News, Ocumare
1 August 2006


Deep inside Venezuela's tropical forest a quiet revolution is taking place.

In the shade of the trees, pink cocoa pods ripen ready for the next harvest in early November.

The pods carry a white, sticky pulp and the cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate.

The type of agriculture being used just outside the village of Ocumare de la Costa, is having a big impact on the farming community and its families.

Ocumare is just one of several communities in Venezuela to have switched from conventional to organic farming and they are now reaping the rewards.

Organic farmers

Jose Lugo spends five hours a day nurturing his three hectares of cacao trees to protect them against pests, insects and bad weather.

Farmers have joined forces in a cooperative


"We don't use any artificial fertilisers, just natural compost," he says.

"It's twice as much work as before but it's definitely worth it."

However, the financial rewards help compensate for the extra work because organic cocoa beans fetch up to four times as much as ordinary beans.

Mr Lugo and his friends now earn about $7 (£3.75) for a kilogramme of beans, whereas they used to get paid just less than $2 for conventional produce.

They no longer sell their cocoa to local intermediaries, which have been priced out of the market, but straight to foreign chocolate manufacturers, which are willing to pay high prices for organic produce.

<more>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5235804.stm

[Canuckistanian]

6. That's a good article

I wish they'd mention some brand names, though. I'd like to buy their products.

[BrotherBuzz]

7. It's a GREAT article and what's real interesting is that it is carried by

both pro and anti Chavez regime sources.

Andrea Trinci, who owns a chocolate factory and shop in Tuscany is one of the fine chocolate makers using Venezuela's product. I remember there are a few others found in the 'Chocolate Valley' Tuscany. I read a great article about the group of 'Chocolate Valley' boys hired to help develop the Venezuelian organic chocolate market, but I can't find it. The article named a lot of the producers.

In the last dozen years Tuscany has become a centre for custom-made world-quality chocolates. A small band of craftsmen called cioccolatieri personally go and procure the best raw materials in faraway lands and bring them to the heart of Italy. All production is on a non-industrial, strictly artisan level, from roasting to blending, sweetening and conversion into pralines, bars and crèmes, often in model workshops often open to visitors by appointment. The high quality attained and jealously maintained by this cottage industry has recently made chocolate a new ‘typical product’ of Tuscany, redubbed ‘Chocolate Valley’ by a foreign journalist.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. There's a few fair trade chocolate companies.

Dagoba, Endangered Species, Vivani are just a few off the top of my head. Most of the chocolate in natural foods stores is fair trade. It will say it directly on the label somewhere.

[NYC]

23. El Rey.

I ate a lot of it in the past.

http://www.chocosphere.com/Html/Products/el-rey.html

[NYC]

22. Venezuelan chocolate is good.

I ate a lot of it in the past. Very dark. I can't think of the brand name. If I remember, I'll post it.

Edit: The brand name may have been El Rey.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Chocolate is one of the worst commodities as far as labor goes

Cacao farmers suffer from the ups and downs of a market they have no control over. Children are often forced into working long days to collect the beans.

The sad part is that these children, who work so hard to pick the beans, have never tasted chocolate themselves or could hope to afford the finished product.

With few buyers and corporate control of the most productive land, the only ones with a reliable income are the big chocolate companies.

[noonwitch]

8. The solution to this problem is obvious-Oompa-loompas!

They'll work for cocoa beans!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. Why give them the beans? in Columbia and Peru, they work for the leaves...

while in North America, many work for a product made from cocoa leaves:

[PaulaFarrell]

11. I think you're confusing cocoa and coca

or was that intentional?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Buy Fair Trade chocolate at your local food co-op

It's good, and you know that the farmers have been paid a fair price for their crop.

(Yeah, it's more expensive, but so what? You're not willing to pay a bit more for a luxury so that a Third World farmer can buy the necessities of life?)

[DocSavage]

12. you

be sure to tell those farmers when they have NO MARKET because of a US boycott how you are helping them in the long run. Maybe, the state should lower the export tax..........

[Omaha Steve]

13. Cocoa Farmers Strike in Ivory Coast, World's Largest Producer

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2572195

By PAULINE BAX

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast Oct 16, 2006 (AP)— Cocoa farmers across Ivory Coast went on strike Monday, holding back their crops to protest low retail prices and high export taxes in a move that could affect the world market.

The West African country is the world's top grower of cocoa beans, producing 40 percent of global output each year, according to government statistics, despite being split following a civil war.

"The strike is on. … We called on the farmers to hoard their beans," Koffi Kanga, a representative of the country's cocoa farmers association, said by telephone from San Pedro, Ivory Coast's second cocoa port after the commercial capital of Abidjan.

Union leaders said they planned to stop trucks carrying cocoa and other farm products such as papayas and bananas to the southern port of Abidjan until the price is raised.

FULL stroy at link above.

[Poll_Blind]

14. A public service announcement from Jenny-Z (chocolate & slavery)

  I ran across this a few months back when I was doing research on "slavery" (keyword used) in America. Quick, entertaining (and disturbing) look at chocolate slavery and the rampant consumption of Americans (among others) whose actions continue to enable it. Very short little PSA-style film (just under 2 minutes) but it really hits home the point. Prior to this I had little knowledge of where cocoa beans come from or the economic & humanitarian conditions under which they are farmed, harvested and processed.

Chocolate Slavery (1:30)

PB

[Omaha Steve]

16. A place to buy fair trade chocolate

http://www.gxonlinestore.org/chocolate.html

[dipsydoodle]

15. Implies they are getting

shit for wages as a result of some Mickey Mouse WTO agreement. Good luck to them.

[Divine Discontent]

17. I couldn't agree more

and even though we're quite poor, and my brother with a lifelong disability LOVES chocolate, the fact that I can go buy those BIG Hershey & Symphony bars at wally world for him for 1.20 each tells me those people don't make a good wage. what is a food co op? I think I understand the concept without knowing much about it, and I suppose there is one in big cities? (anyone know for central FL)



www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[dipsydoodle]

18. The farmers

group together into bunches/cooperatives which allows them to share whatever resources they've got.

[NashVegas]

21. Ack. Christmas Is Coming

Best stock up.