Category: cocoa

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And now for something completely different …

I’ve gotten used to the idea that people will mix chocolate with just about anything edible. Part of that is human curiosity, another part is the desire to come up with yet another new thing that can stand out in an ever more crowded market. But the news of the first chocolate made with camel milk did seem to warrant at least a mention. So, here it is. A company in the United Arab Emirates has produced the first milk chocolate made with camel milk. It comes in the shape of, you guessed it, hollow camels–one a baby camel at 130g and the other a big camel at 730g. The manufacturer, Al Nassma Chocolate, assures buyers that only the finest ingredients have been used.

I usually resist most gimmicks when it comes to chocolate. Why mess with something that’s already perfect? But I guess there is a case to be made for milk chocolate using something other than cow’s milk. If anyone out there has tried it, let me know.

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Cocoa Farmers block Cocoa Delivery in the Côte d’Ivoire

I reported a couple of weeks ago that the new management committee for the cocoa sector in the Côte d’Ivoire set a new indicative price of CFA700 ($1.48) per kilogram for the 2008/09 cocoa season. That represented a forty percent increase over the indicative price of the previous season. I also reported that this indicative price is not a mandatory price. That is, traders and other middle men can pay more or less depending on the quality of the cocoa and market conditions. But that’s not how Ivorian cocoa farmers see it.

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Fair Trade Counters Poverty

As my contribution to Blog Action Day 2008, I’d like to advocate for fair trade as an effective anti-poverty strategy. Not only does fair trade provide a price floor for farmers and workers who produce the raw materials for many products we consume, it also, and that makes it different from any other certification scheme, provide a social premium that is invested in community projects that benefit all members of the communities.

The concept of a floor price is important because it protects farmers from the worst aspects of a down turn in commodity prices. The contracts that fair trade cooperatives negotiate with fair trade manufacturers and distributors lock are guaranteed not to fall below that floor price. For cocoa that price is $1,600 per ton. For most of the past two decades, that price protected the minimum income of farmers when world cocoa prices dropped as low as $1,000 per ton.

But what happens if the world market price is higher than $1,600 per ton? Farmers will, of course, receive that higher world market price. But this is where the second feature of fair trade comes into play–the social premium of $150 per ton.

Take the Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative in Ghana for example. If they sell 1,000 tons of fair trade cocoa, the cooperative will receive $150,000 in social premium. Those funds are then turned over to the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Trust which will distribute the monies to individual village societies for projects that benefit the society as a whole. Such projects have included water pumps, privies, and schools. They directly improve the lives of farmers.

So if you want to fight poverty in the cocoa sector, buy fair trade chocolate and cocoa. It’s easy and it tastes good.

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October is Fair Trade Month!

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.

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