Map of Tamil Nadu
A little item in the Economic Times of India shows yet again how market forces and agriculture don’t really work together very well. The article points out that due to the recent high prices for cocoa, cocoa cultivation has increased in India (I have reported on that earlier). The report focuses on the speed with which farmers in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu have adopted cocoa .
Cadburys Dairy Milk Chocolate Bars (Fair Trade)
After promising to source fairtrade beans for its flagship Dairy Milk bar, Cadbury made good. On July 21, the first Fairtrade Dairy Milk bars started coming off the production line in Bourneville. Within days, these bars will appear in shops all over the UK and Ireland. It’s the first time that a mainstream chocolate brand has switched to fairtrade.
I have mentioned before that the Westernization of the tastes of the Indian middle classes is part of the great hope of the chocolate industry. Much of the sustainability talk that is making the rounds these days is driven by the desire to produce enough cocoa at reasonable prices to capture that market. But a recent report makes me wonder how much there will be to capture.
