Thrillers and Suspense
Last week, the committee that has taken over the management of the cocoa sector in the Côte d’Ivoire took a first step toward reform. The committee decided to lower the one of the cocoa levies from CFA25.26 to CFA 10.06 per kilo. The proceeds of that levy were used to fund the three cocoa agencies at the center of the corruption scandal.
Continue reading “First Signs of Reform in the Côte D’Ivoire”
I almost forgot to write this post. October is Fair Trade Month. It is an important reminder to consider fair trade purchases whenever possible. Not just during this month, but always. Having just returned from Europe, I was again astonished how much more prevalent fair trade products are in ordinary stores. The U.S. still has a lot of catching up to do.
As the mortgage-banking-credit crisis gathered full steam over the past two years, I could not help but see parallels between the ever more esoteric financial derivatives invented by profit hungry investment bankers and the lives of those stuck with an rotten mortgage on the one hand and the operations of the futures and options markets in relation to the lives of the farmers who grow the raw materials that satisfy our cravings on the other.
The 2008/09 Ivorian cocoa season began five days late due to the reform efforts that are to weed out the corruption in the cocoa sector. The management committee that now runs the key cocoa sector institutions opened the season on Sunday and also set a new indicative farm gate price of CFA700 ($1.48) per kilogram for the next quarter, up from CFA500/kg during the past quarters.
Continue reading “Côte d’Ivoire Increases Cocoa Farm Gate Price”
New research published in the journal PLoS One (Public Library of Science), reveals that there is far more genetic diversity in cocoa trees than hitherto assumed. Anyone interested in cocoa and chocolate has know for a long time that there are three varieties: criollo, forastero and trinitario.
The names date back to the early days of the Spanish conquest. The trees growing in Mexico, particularly Soconusco, and Central America were thought to produce the highest quality of beans and were called criollo or “native.” The beans from the Amazon area were considered to be of inferior quality. When they began to show up in Mexico, there were called forastero or “foreigner” to distinguish them from the home grown variety. Later, enterprising farmers in Trinidad hybridized the two varieties and produced the third strain, trinitario. Or so the story goes.
Continue reading “New Research Upsets Old Cocoa Classification”
For the second year in a row, a number of organizations concerned about the fate of children in the cocoa sector around the world are pooling their resources for a reverse trick-or-treat campaign on Halloween. The campaign is indented to educate consumers about the labor conditions in the cocoa sector and the fair trade alternatives available to them.
Continue reading “Reverse Trick-or-Treat Campaign starts again”
