The 'dark' in your chocolate: As chocolatiers pocket billions, cocoa farmers earn less than a dollar a day

New Delhi: Ivorian government has been trying to force the world’s multibillion-dollar chocolate industry to pay farmers fairer cocoa prices.

Farmers work tirelessly on plots of land in Ivory Coast to collect as many cocoa beans as possible between October and March.

The ivory coast produces around 45 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans but receives only around four percent of the chocolate industry’s estimated annual worth of $100bn.

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According to a report in Al Jazeera, one of the farmers said, “I have to support a family of eight people, and I will only make around $1,200 to $1,500 from this year’s harvest,” said Eugene Kouassi, tending a two-acre plot in Soubre, a town in the heart of Ivory Coast’s cocoa land. For most smallholders like him, cocoa farming is their sole source of income. “This money has to last for most of the year.”

The livelihoods of these farmers also take a hit when the harvest suffers. According to the World Economic Forum, millions of cocoa farmers in the country survive on an average of just $0.78 a day.

As large companies would push back on anything that will eat into their margins, the chocolate industry.

Ivory Coast and Ghana boycotted a meeting in October saying they will no longer produce cocoa at unfavourable prices.

Al Jazeera reported, a Dutch chocolatier Tony’s Chocolonely, said most chocolate companies have plenty of room to redistribute wealth further down the supply chain.

“The bigger players in the chocolate and cocoa sector could easily pay farmers more, dilute some of their margins and still make a decent profit,” he said. “In the end, it’s a matter of choice, whether you want to maximise your profits at the expense of extreme poverty,” he added.

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