Thrillers and Suspense
Many farmers in Ghana’s Central Region have refused to cut down their cocoa trees infected by swollen shoot disease. That despite the strong urging by political and scientific authorities and sensitization workshops. Authorities consider the removal of infected trees the best method to keep the disease from spreading. So why won’t farmers play along?
Cadbury has announced plans to open a chain of Cocoa Houses in the UK. The plan involves opening some 60 locations across the country over the next three to five years. The first one will open this year.
Retail analysts consider this a smart move and a way for Cadbury, now part of food giant Kraft, to cash in on the growing market for expensive hot drinks. The hot chocolate twist is probably a good idea provided it’s good hot chocolate.
The folks over at the International Labor Rights Fund have made the six part documentary available on their website. Check it out.
Negotiations leading to the seventh International Cocoa Agreement (ICCA) got underway in Yaounde, Cameroon in late March. ICCAs are general agreements that are supposed to foster cooperation between producer and consumer countries, encourage sustainable cocoa farming and help producer countries. Over the years, these agreements included market intervention mechanisms such as buffer stocks to smooth out cocoa price fluctuations but since the 1990s, such mechanism have been eliminated in favor of increased information dissemination and reliance on market mechanism.
Tom Allen of Trading Visions has put together a nice collection of blog posts on the intersection between childhood and chocolate. I’ve contributed an post on the record of the chocolate industry to address the issue of child labor in West Africa. Other posts include Amanda Berlan’s contribution on whose voices dominate the debate on child labor, Catherine Phipps post on childhood and chocolate in the North and Tom Allen’s report from a child labor workshop in Ghana.
