Fair Trade Chocolate Farmers

When looking at all the articles about "slave labor" chocolate your question may be, "Is all chocolate coming from the Ivory Coast or Ghana made by slave labor?" The answer to that question is no. Only a percentage of chocolate comes from slave labor and that number is hard to pinpoint. My personal opinion is that any chance of chocolate coming from the hands of exploited children is too much of a chance. Unfortunately, most of the conventional chocolate produced does come from sources that that do not pay a living wage to the small farmer or employees of larger plantations. That is why fair trade chocolate is also important to the small farmer.

Small farmers are paid about 1/100th of the cost of what the cacoa beans are actually sold to the end user. This does not provide a living wage to the farmer or his family continuing a never ending cycle of poverty. This can all change with Fair Trade certified items. Fair trade organizations work with farmers to provide them a living wage to end the poverty cycle. The current conventional buying system, especially in West Africa, is writhe with scandals, bribery and greed. All of this is at the expense of the small farmer producing the product.

I consider the extra money I have to spend to buy fair trade chocolate a donation to ending the poverty cycle in third world countries. That said, ethically, I cannot willingly support a system that knowingly exploits people and children just so I can have cheap chocolate.