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.
Guest Blogging at Trading Visions
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.
Cocoa Prices – The Continuing Saga
The roller coaster of cocoa prices continues. Since the December 16 high of $3,636/ton, cocoa prices have dropped by almost $600/ton as measured by the ICCO Daily Price. There hasn’t been much in terms of news that might warrant this decline. Yes, production in the current year is higher than previously expected, but the surplus of 80,000 tons (as predicted by the ICCO according to a Bloomberg article) isn’t very much in light of previous four years of deficits.
Cadbury Announces Plans for first Social Premium Disbursement
Cadbury, the latest convert to fairtrade, announced on Monday its plans for disbursing the first installment of its social premium. The funds, £500,000 ($751,215), will be invested in projects determined by the farmer cooperatives that supply the cocoa. One of the beneficiaries, the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative, will use its share to improve health services for its members through the deployment of mobile clinics and farmer extension services.
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Some Background on the Ivorian Crisis
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.
