Cargill, the global food giant, joined the sustainability bandwagon in 2008 when the corporation joined the UTZ Certified Program for cocoa. In 2009, the first cooperatives in the Côte d’Ivoire had implemented the relevant codes of conduct and were certified by UTZ.
Now, a year later, the first premium payments totaling $400,000 were made to two cooperatives–Co-operative Agricole de Fiedifoue and Coopaga.
Posts Tagged ‘Côte d’Ivoire’
Cargill Pays Premium
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Some Background on the Ivorian Crisis
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Côte d'Ivoire, Divided
When Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved that country’s government and electoral commission on February 12, he created the latest roadblock in the long and difficult road to elections. The outcome was predictable. The elections, already postponed six times to March 2010, now are even father off. Even more disturbing was the dissolution of the Electoral Commission, the very entity charged with organizing the elections.
UK’s Kit Kat to go Fairtrade
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Fairtrade Kit Kat (Photo BBC)
Nestlé, the global food giant, announced that, starting in 2010, its Kit Kat bar in the UK will be made with fairtrade chocolate. In doing so, Nestlé is following the example set by Cadbury earlier this year. According to the BBC, Nestlé sells about 1 billion Kit Kats a year in the UK. The beneficiaries of this move will be the cocoa farmers in the Côte d’Ivoire who stand to receive hundreds of thousands pounds as a result of the decision as estimated by Harriet Lamb of the UK’s Fairtrade Foundation.
Ivorian Harvest Much Better Than Expected, So Far…
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Pods ready for harvest
News of the decline of Ivorian cocoa production might be premature. I have reported earlier that a consensus estimate put Ivorian output for the current cocoa year at 1-1.15 million tons, quite a bit below the 1.4 million tons the country had achieved only a few years ago. But that consensus is no longer holding.
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to Cooperate on Cocoa Prices
Thursday, November 5th, 2009The Ivorian President Gbagbo’s two-day visit to Ghana ended with a joint communique expressing the two countries’ resolve to influence international cocoa prices. The communique pointed out that increases in production have not yielded comparative increases in revenue for the countries. It further criticized the impact of global commodity cartels on cocoa prices. Finally, Gbagbo and Ghanaian President Mills reaffirmed their support for moving the headquarters of the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) from London to Abidjan.
