Written by guest contributor Dana Geffner

Standing in the middle of a field in the Ghanaian countryside, slurping down the silky sweet fruit that wraps around the bean inside an organic cacao pod, I can’t help but contemplate the challenges small-scale farmers face in operating their farms so they can generate enough money to support their families, to put food on the table for their children and a roof over their heads. Roughly 5-6 million small-scale farmers (under 12 acres) produce 90% of the world’s cocoa, and some 50 million people worldwide depend on the cocoa supply chain for their income or employment.¹ Farmers are unable to afford the most basic human rights: clothing, housing, food, and medical care since they are being paid poverty wages. Every cacao farmer I’ve ever met is proud of their farm and the work they do from dawn to dusk. I listen to them tell me about how they are not able to sell all of their cacao on fair trade terms, the amount necessary to stay on their farms, feed their children and have enough profit to continue a sustainable farming practice. Farmers have additional challenges to contend with to produce cacao, such as lack of the right to own their land, with women struggling the most, extractive government policies such as laws granting the government the right to all timber, including on private land which discourages farmers from farming sustainability, and exacerbation of the climate crisis increasing temperatures that are reducing the production of cocoa production by up to 30-40%.

While chocolate is considered a luxury for many of us, for small-scale farmers worldwide, it is their source of necessary income that often comes with the harsh realities of corporate control of the industry. The cocoa industry is highly consolidated with only four companies, Hershey, Lindt, Mondelēz, and Nestlé, controlling nearly 90% of the chocolate market, giving them a huge amount of control over cacao farmers and the prices we see on the supermarket shelves; they made roughly $15 billion in profits since 2020. And while we see a wall of brands and bars in the supermarkets, only a few companies own those brands. Hershey’s brands (kisses, KitKat bars), for example, make up almost 34% of the United States chocolate market. Even fewer companies control cocoa processing from the bean to the bar.

Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa, mostly in Ghana and Cote-d’Ivoire, with the remaining 30% coming from Southeast Asia and Central and South America. Oxfam International surveyed more than 400 cacao farmers in Ghana that supply the big four companies and found that their incomes have fallen by the exact same average amount as these corporation’s profits grew: 16% since 2020. Nestle’s 2023 sales total $103 billion, which is greater than the GDP of the top 2 cocoa-producing countries: Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana.

We have to acknowledge that the cocoa industry is rooted in colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Dating back to the 1700s, European colonists planted cacao across Africa and used enslaved people in the fields to maximize profits. This traditional business model has yet to change. The complex chocolate supply chain is created to keep prices low and profits high. The price paid to farmers is directly connected to the commodity markets in New York and has nothing to do with the true cost of production. Just 20% of the world’s cocoa is certified by a so-called ethical certification. And then very little is organic, only .05% of cocoa is organic with most of the organic cocoa coming from Latin America. Only 30% of that .05% organic cocoa comes from West Africa.

Photos above: Harvesting cacao in Peru.

Disproportionate power held by a few mega-corporations grants them political power over local governments, making it hard to create lasting and impactful change that prioritizes people and the planet over corporate profits. It also means that even when you see a “locally made” artisan chocolate bar, it’s likely that their actual cocoa ingredients came from one of these big mega-corporations that hold power in the cacao growing regions and in trading. This is not to say we should not support our locally-made chocolate makers; it just points out the fact that without buying power and government regulations, small chocolatiers have little say in how they source their ingredients. The governments of Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana tried to implement a Living Income Differential (LID) in 2020–2021 to close the living wage gap for cacao farmers in these regions but were met with resistance by these mega-corporations. These corporations claimed they couldn’t compete if they paid higher prices to farmers even while their profits grew. Robert Reich talks about “greedflation” over inflation being a problem since our economy is controlled by a few corporate giants, and this is definitely the case in the chocolate industry.

The average cocoa farmer in West Africa earns less than $1/day for their crop. Low prices are at the core of so many issues that cocoa farmers face: continuous low prices, the undervaluation of the crop, which means historic under-investment, and generational poverty that creates forced child labor and deforestation. There is a large living wage income gap, and for decades, advocates have been calling on the biggest corporations to pay living wages, provide fair and transparent contracts, and end child labor.

Increase in child labor (WHAT?!)

Over 168 million children are involved in child labor in global supply chains, and 85 million of them are engaged in hazardous work that puts their health or safety at risk. The chocolate industry has a huge problem with forced and child labor. Over two decades ago, several news outlets exposed child labor in the chocolate industry: a symptom of the exploitation of cocoa farming families by large multinational corporations that are making billions on the backs of cocoa farmers by paying them poverty wages. The U.S. Department of Labor-funded report by NORC at the University of Chicago reported that between 2007/2008 and 2018/2019, there was a 14% increase in child labor, with 1.56 million children forced to work on cocoa farms for the largest chocolate corporations in the world with 95% of them performing hazardous work that qualifies as the “worst forms of child labor” under ILO Convention No. 182. Most kids who grow up on farms anywhere do work after school with their families, so it is important to make a distinction here for clarification purposes on child labor. Child labor is when children work on farms doing hazardous work, which takes them away from their development, such as attending school. Reports have shown that children are being trafficked to work in dangerous and degrading jobs on cocoa farms, such as wielding sharp tools like machetes. They are exposed to agrochemicals, lifting heavy loads, and burning fields. They are also working extremely long hours. This type of child labor is not going away; it’s actually getting worse since there is a big push for farmers to increase productivity to make ends meet, and that means that the number of children handling toxic agrochemicals increased by five times over the past decade.

Broken promises: voluntary or regulatory

These reports led to an outcry from advocates to pressure the largest brands in the chocolate industry to work on eradicating child labor in the cocoa fields. Multinational corporations made big PR statements in 2001 stating and promising that they would work to eliminate child labor in cocoa farms by signing the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a non-binding voluntary international agreement that partnered governments, the global cocoa industry, cocoa producers, cocoa laborers, non-governmental organizations to end the worst forms of child labor and forced labor by 70% in the production of cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana by 2005, but by 2015 the goal had not been reached. It was extended to 2020, and the promise is still unfulfilled. This is a clear indication that we need regulation over voluntary agreements. Since promises are not being kept and child labor is rising, legislation has been passed and is being worked on now, specifically in Europe. Governments and NGOs are working on Human Rights Due Diligence Legislation that obligates corporations to identify, prevent, assess, mitigate, and account for how they address adverse human rights impacts resulting from their business activities.

Several Lawsuits in the United States have now been filed against these major corporations for their profiting off of child and forced labor. In December 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case Nestle USA and Cargill v. Doe using the Alien Torte Statute of 1789, where six plaintiffs claim to have been trafficked from Mali when they were small children and forced to work on cocoa farms in Cote d'Ivoire. Nestle and Cargill poured resources into arguing against accountability for fifteen years, as the case started in 2005. Nestle and Cargill’s argument is not that there is no child labor but that holding them liable would put them at a “competitive disadvantage.” In June 2021, The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in favor of Nestle and Cargill, stating that the Alien Torte Statute does not apply to applications conducted outside U.S. territory and that this would constitute foreign policy concerns and that responsibility belongs to Congress, not Federal Judiciary. You can listen to the For A Better World podcast on Money and Power: The Unnamed Ingredients episode for more information on the case.

When I co-founded Fair World Project in 2010, a non-profit advocating for fair trade for small-scale farmers and labor justice for workers, our first campaign was to start working on the Raise the Bar Campaign alongside Green America and Global Exchange. They had been working on this campaign against Hershey’s for years. We facilitated a letter-writing campaign for consumers to send to Whole Foods Market, asking them to drop Hershey’s until they committed to ending child labor in their cocoa supply chains. Due to this consumer pressure campaign, Whole Foods pulled all Hershey’s products off their shelves. Shortly after, in October 2012, Hershey’s announced that it would build a road map to certify all of its cocoa by 2020. This announcement was enough for the core advocacy groups to stop their Raise the Bar campaign and claim victory. Sadly, over 10 years later, child labor in Hershey’s cocoa supply chains has not been eradicated.

Photos above: Transporting cacao beans in Panama (left) and turning fermented cacao beans on drying racks in the Dominican Republic (right).

Deforestation

Deforestation is another consequence of low prices paid to farmers and the poverty they cause. Farmers struggling to make ends meet sometimes expand their cocoa farming into forests—we see an alarming amount of deforestation, including in protected forest areas. Illegal forest clearing in Cote d’Ivoire has taken out 80% of their rainforests since 1960. While clearing new land may be a short-term income fix, it will continue to fuel climate change and biodiversity loss in the long term. We are already seeing irregular weather patterns in West Africa, causing some farmer's yields to be reduced, which means that they earn less money, which also stresses trees requiring more work and investment. The large chocolate companies responsible for unsustainable production have and continue to make deforestation-free pledges. Still, they have neither the traceability in their supply chains to ensure that’s not happening nor the will to address the root causes and pay farmers a fair price for their crops. In 2021, legislation called the FOREST Act of 2021 was introduced in Congress. This piece of legislation, if approved, will ban products from entering the U.S. that have been linked to illegal deforestation and provides a list that must be updated annually of specific commodities such as palm oil, soybeans, cocoa, cattle, rubber, and wood pulp. This bill could force corporations to conduct due diligence to trace their supply chains and provide full transparency reporting.

True systemic change needs to happen in the chocolate industry, and big corporations must prioritize paying living incomes to farmers. It is a human right and necessary to deal with all the challenges that come with farming sustainably. Also, beyond paying farmers living incomes, they need training to deal with changing weather patterns that are shrinking their harvests. Some organizations, such as Grow Ahead Foundation, are working on the ground by partnering with community organizations to implement reforestation training to support climate resiliency projects on cocoa farms. As individuals, we can help by donating to organizations that prioritize these authentic partnerships.

Can individuals really transform a broken system?

I’ve spent 25 years trying to change consumers' buying habits. I’ve created corporate pressure campaigns, partnered with grocery stores on cause-based promotions to move dollars towards ethical brands, and educated retail buyers on the strongest and most impactful certification systems to help them make purchasing decisions. I vacillate between believing that, as individuals, we must do our part and then believing that our buying decisions are meaningless without policy in place to cement the transformation. I always land on all of it being necessary. Individuals must be concerned citizens, educated and determined to end exploitation, and hold politicians accountable. AND we need to show corporations we are not willing to support bad behavior with our dollars and use our purchasing power to support ethical brands working hard to change power dynamics.

Equal Exchange Chocolate Products Manager, Dary Goodrich, visiting cacao farms in the Dominican Republic.

Several alternative trading partners prioritize paying living incomes and listening to the farmers and communities themselves when making decisions. However, we as consumers must be willing to pay the real cost for this luxury and spend a little more on our chocolate bars. Chocolate companies working to change power dynamics and transform the chocolate industry so it works for the farmers and the earth must be prioritized by retail store buyers and consumers. These companies struggle to compete against multinational corporations that use glossy marketing and weak corporate certifications to wash over their exploitative cocoa supply chains. Even if a large corporation is working within the fair trade system and partnering with small-scale farmers with decision-making power, they can lower the price points of their “ethically” sourced chocolate bars because they make up their profit margins on the extensive product lines that use exploitation. This is why consumers prioritizing smaller independent brands working with small-scale farmer organizations is necessary.

Farmer members of cacao grower’s cooperative, CONACADO, one of Equal Exchange’s primary trading partners, in the Dominican Republic.

To transform the cocoa industry, we all need to do our part by paying attention to the brands we support and by supporting politicians and policies that support the end of exploitative business practices. When public opinion shifts and the number of people that participate in taking action to change systems increases we see impactful change, take the LGBTQ movement, same sex marriage became legal because a growing number of individuals organized and fought for it. We see more organic produce in markets worldwide because of public interest. We all need to advocate for change by sharing information with friends and family about the challenges facing cocoa farmers, signing petitions that demand better from brands, speaking to our local grocer about not selling any brands with a history of these exploitative practices, supporting ethical brands committed to true transformation, and donating to organizations working to end forced child labor and deforestation and that are investing in agroforestry and biodiversity. We all must demand transparency from the chocolate industry.

“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”

— Mr. John Lewis, the great and fearless leader

For over two decades, Dana Geffner has worked to raise awareness of a just food system that works in solidarity with small-scale farmers and artisans, protects worker’s rights and encourages trade policy transformation that benefits people and the planet. She is co-founder of Fair World Project (FWP), an NGO based in the United States that advocates fair trade for organized small-scale farmers and labor justice for workers globally. She was the host of For A Better World, a podcast about fair trade and the farmer and worker-led movements that are fighting for equitable food and farming systems, and editor of the magazine with the same name for over 10 years. She helped to develop the Regenerative Organic Certification to help strengthen the social fairness pillar of the standard and served on the board of directors for 6 years of the Regenerative Organic Alliance. She is a co-founder and current board member of Grow Ahead, a crowdfunding platform that raises funds for farmer-led agroforestry projects to address the challenges of climate change in global south communities. She holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master’s Certification in Food Systems from the Berkeley Food Institute. She is now working on a book that will be published by Chelsea Green at the end of 2024 that shares tools for creating more justice in food supply chains to create a more hopeful future for us all. Her goal is to stop corporate extractive growth that is driving inequality and to participate in building a just economy for everyone.

¹ Cocoa. Fairtrade International. https://riskmap.fairtrade.net/commodities/cocoa