Cocoa Loco

A breakdown of the problems faced by Ivory Coast’s cocoa-farms

See the full article by the Globe and Mail here. 
Read about the Ivory Coast here. 
View a map of the Ivory Coast here.


Summary of Article

• Ivory Coast is responsible for over a third of the world’s cocoa supply – it’s their main export

• Environmental problems facing cocoa crops in Ivory Coast:

-scourges of pests eat/destroy portions of cocoa product
-Killer diseases afflict crops
-Soil nutrients have been all but entirely consumed

• The export of cocoa has been banned from Ivory Coast by Alassane Ouattara, the presidential claimant in Ivory Coast in order to force President Laurent Gbagbo to resign

• John Mason foresaw, and made a plan to improve, the lack of sustainability in the cocoa-farming industry

• There was an agreement between high-power chocolate brokers to form a committee to solve the approaching worldwide supply issue.

• Farming cocoa is permanently a small-scale family business in the Ivory Coast –it cannot be industrialized or mass-produced due to the nature of work involved

• Globally, the demand for cocoa -and the price per tonne- are higher than ever and likely to escalate

• The process by which cocoa is currently harvested and processed is environmentally damaging and economically not rewarding for the farmers

• Plans to resolve the issue entail optimizing the soil that still has the right nutrients and improving the quality of soil where it is depleted by paying farmers to temporarily confine their harvest

• This solution will require an investment of time and money to support the farmers while they improve their land

Article Analysis

Complex

Interrelated

Environmental	Economic	Social	Political
-Unsustainable use of land in Ivory Coast results in destruction and depletion of environment on farms; land can’t support the crop -Increase in demand from other countries causes the need to cut into Costa Rican Rainforest; less mediation of CO2	-Cocoa is the Ivory  Coast’s main export, without a sustainable future for it their economy is endangered -WITH the help of others their economy can benefit -Global chocolate prices will continue to greatly increase as supply decreases, and during the ‘re-growing period’	-Chocolate is a part of some cultures- it has a glamourous and revered past as a resource more valuable than gold -For others it is just something enjoyable; a comfort food whose availability and economic status are about to change drastically	-The export of cocoa is being used as a political pawn by Alassane Ouattara, presidential claimant of Ivory Coast

Controversial

How did this issue start?

How should it be resolved?

There were underlying issues of environmental neglect. Cocoa farms were not environmentally sustainable or efficient. The political disturbance in Ivory Coast brought urgency and attention to this issue.

The strategies in place to develop and maintain sustainable systems of cocoa-farming must be carried out. Firstly, the government of Ivory Coast needs to reach some conclusion to the political games they’re playing; whether Gbagbo holds out and keeps power, or resigns and gives power to Ouattara. The start of a civil war will intensify all pre-existing problems in the country. After political problems are dealt with, there will be an opportunity to carry out the strategies already conceived to solve the environmental sustainability of the industry.

My Opinion

As Frederick Schilling says, “Cocoa is not a product that can be industrialized.”
This unique characteristic of cocoa farms makes them so different from the mass-production farms that generate the majority of the products we use. It makes the industry so appealing; in a world in which every last commodity is manufactured with speed and convenience in mind, there remains this one product that grows from the earth and must be harvested and processed by hand.   
                 I have heard a lot of talk about reducing consumerism, the ill-effects of factory farming and the problems with using GMO’s. All of those are problems that we are trying to fix, but right in front of us is an opportunity to avoid such dilemmas. The cocoa-farming industry is one that has the potential to stay ‘innocent’ in relation to other farming industries in that it doesn’t yet require the use of GMO’s and it is still generally a family-run procedure. To have such a traditional and rare industry still exist and contribute to our modern-day economy is a privilege, so I think it is vastly important that we support the plan to renew the farms and support the farming families while their land develops back into a usable state. In the meantime, other countries can focus on conscientiously maximizing their production of the crop.

This issue is a real-life cautionary tale, the lesson for the world is that it really is better to maintain ecological health and prevent catastrophe than have to chemically fix it later.

-Mary Tress