This week, we interviewed Kwame Kwarteng, the writer behind Cocoa Diaries Newsletter, a publication that looks critically at the global cocoa-chocolate sector.
This was eye-opening: "be cautious in your support of any campaign that paints all child workers with a broad brush, as that can be an injustice to children who use that as a route out of child poverty." Reminds me of advocacy to curtail the work of erotic dancers / strippers because of how it objectifies and demeans women - when, in fact, many of those women find it empowering and lucrative and feel anything but demeaned. Thorny topic, I know. But life is full of nuance and ambiguity. I wish more people could embrace that, rather than living in extremes.
Okay I get that but paying someone well to do what they love (whether its exotic dancing or kids apprenticing or working in a way that is humane and doesn't get in the way of being a kid) is different than enabling corporate bohemiths to profit at the expense of individual human rights. We can support family owned cacao businesses, women owned cooperatives and other initiatives that get money directly into the pockets of families instead of wealthy shareholder.
An awe inspiring story, I'd love to visit your land and taste a hot cocoa to be nourished by mama-africa, as we said in Portuguese. Thank you for sharing your story.
@kwame this was a lovely read and I enjoyed learning a little about you. I am passionate about a fairer market in cocoa production and trading and constantly looking into organisations trying to do better. I recently came across FairAfric chocolate all across Accra. They claim to be “premium quality organic chocolate...produced from tree to bar in rural Ghana. This wildly increases Africa's share of the value chain in the chocolate industry.” They also claim to pay the highest cocoa premiums in West Africa: 600 USD per ton of cocoa. I would love to pick your brain on this. That may require a discussion beyond Substack, if interested. But for the purpose of this public discussion I would love to know your thoughts on these efforts and if this is going far enough.
Dear Lerato, Thank you for your comment. I am yet to conduct an interview with FairAfric to understand their business model very well and delve deep into their claims on how they are supporting cocoa farmers in Ghana. So I wouldn't be able to provide an answer for now. FairAfric seem to be a great company but I mostly prefer to speak with them to ask further questions before forming my conclusions. I just finished an interview with KOA-Impact, who is into cocoa pulp processing in Ghana to understand their business model and operations and how it improves the farmer's livelihoods and net income. I will be publishing an article on it very soon. You will hear from me soon on FairAfric.
And also if child labor is sometimes better than not being able to work, how do we clearly hold companies accountable for child slavery, kidnappings and forced or coerced labor that to me is ethically unambiguous?
Exactly. If Child Labour is not properly defined with nuance, we risk sending alot of African children into poverty. Most African countries do not have welfare support policies in practices to for its children regardless of age or disability. So knowing that our economies are not as rich as that of the west, we are socialised to be resourceful and enterprising from a younger age to fend for our ourselves. The wish of an African parent is not to see the child work and study at the same time. However we are faced with a circumstance where finding a paid work is the only option for survival regardless of age. So you can imagine the devastating impact a policy that stops such a child from working can have on such a child.
Do you think that child labor would be needed beyond family apprentice type situations if the FCC were out of it? Studying and school...interesting topics. Studying and mastery are different from western style 19th century-21st century education, and even more messed up with sellout of teacher unions to Rockefellers, trilateralists, big tech. Check out Whitney Webb's work. She's always going against the narrative :)I think school itself is often just how the state conditions young minds, as opposed to true study where you learn a skill, trade or intellectual or spiritual ability that helps you serve your higher purpose as YOU within your community.
You describe the resiliency required to survive well!
"In this article, I would like to help Ghana and Ivory Coast with arguments on why leaving the FCC is the only way for both countries to take control of the sector as expected." Aho and Amen. My best love and support for your success to attain full sovereignty to nurture cocoa and be nurtured it without oppression of any kind, in peace and prosperity. I only recently learned that Trudeau is loyal to the Queen of England (Sworn secrecy to her, on secret matters,) the US/Canada have a lot more control over Ukraine than Ukranians...so much leads back to the continued attempts of conquest of the British Crown and its royal families and sub corporations, both in the US and Canada and and in Europe. May the light shine into every well-intentioned heart and bring an end to globalism.
Have you read uncensored on substack? If you're in for a deep dive (you may not agree with everything) it's a fascinating read here on substack. I don't share her views on all matters but some interesting stuff.
This article is excellent. It perfectly articulate the nuance that is not found in mainstream talking points when it comes to what is classified as child Labour. The frustration we face is how sustainability programmes in Africa are planned in the west. So these plans are weaved with the narratives and culture of the westerners hence leading to its counter-productiveness when implemented. What I can say is, The definition of child labour is political. For example the Diamond industry saw anti-child labour rhetoric being used to convince "Ethical" buyers to switch to lab-grown diamond. A similar situation is currently happening with the emergence of the lab grown chocolate. So how do you create a solution that works if the problem you intend to solve is incorrectly defined? If the child labour definition is nuanced, the numbers wouldn't be big enough to exaggerate the need to totally cut the farmer out of the supply chain to fix "Child Labour"
Really excellent thoughts, Kwame. I can see how that would be devastating economically. I am also concerned about the CRISPR tech used by Mars Inc and I imagine the others. Bill Gates and others who promote genetic edits and lab grown foods devastate the land, health and economies long term in the name of charity as far as I can tell from what I've observed. What is your take on his role in all this?
If you look at the deeper issues, the cocoa industry and all the others are owned by two companies. "Bloomberg has also referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser.
Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use."
The other company is Vanguard, which is the biggest investor in Blackrock. So if we look at the root, we can find only a very tiny minority. The whole people of Mother Earth, in all our glorious sovereign divinity are far more powerful!
I wonder what the influence would be if everyone asked their local grocers to stock truly ethical sources for chocolate and only bought those...also watch out for Blackrock buying up properties. Time to create share circles that operate in sovereignty; be beautiful on the inside and choose to create from unity we share rather than top down...share what we have in love, independent of social credit systems. So tired of seeing nations hurt because they aren't interested in participating in globalism as defined by WEF. We need to love our neighbor and go beyond the false polarities that keep us in-fighting among good people. Undo censorship, celebrate unity of humanity! YAY for all of us coming together in love. Let's gather around the chocolate table and bring about an unsetting of the un great reset and set our sovereign course for love and peace and prosperity for all! Aho.
Exactly. Most times the voice of the African is not elevate to provide the uncomfortable perspective that may not run parallel with the existing narratives. When the African is giving the chance to freely participate and lead in discussions and decisions that directly affect us or is about us, we will be able to contribute meaningfully like that Malawian colleague did.
I would love to hear your experiences with the EU - as you have I'm sure gathered from my post I suspect their interests lie in hegemony and posturing rather than true sovereignty and wellbeing for African lives. I've seen the same in my very liberal university city. The liberals yell the loudest with the black lives matters signs and make the nicest corporate statements and have a lot of equity meetings but it's all puff. Most of the POC quit one equity meeting I am aware of as a result of administration ensuring the committees had no real autonomy to enact sovereign changes unless the conformed to leaderships agenda, which was essentially, "look good, don't change a thing." Do you know people in the EU who would be willing to sacrifice hegemony to support the sovereignty of Africa and the farmers therein? What is the best way for peopel who want to get to root causes to support true change that gets at the root rather than a plastic bandaid for a body filled with sepsis?
I would love to hear thoughts on differentiated and well-implemented/enforced policies that discern between child labor that is non-coercive and non-abusive and non-slavery versus that which is coercive, abusive, slave labor.
Lily, I don't have any experience that would qualify me to answer. I was responding to Kwame's personal experience. My experience of child labour, for want of a better word was delivering newspapers on my pushbike and doing jobs to raise money for charities. I didn't have to do it, I chose to do it. I suspect that Kwame's experience was totally different, but I was respecting that he took a different perspective and was able to raise himself out of the poverty trap, that he might otherwise have been trapped in by circumstances. I am not in favour of any scenario were children are coerced in any way that is abusive.
totally with you! I have no issue with kids contributing meaningfully to their communities - whether its contributing to families through "chores" or doing odd jobs for extra $. I'm more thinking the conversation could uplevel among us Westerners to talk about the larger ecosystems that would create a situation in which someone HAD to work as a child, and do the policies address undoing the hegemonies that lead to poverty in places like Africa via the FCC - do we tweak a policy a hair to the right or the left while leaving the real source of pain in place or or do we address the root cause - which I see as colonialism and exploitation. Kwame addresses this directly in the need to disentangle from the FCC in the article he linked under one of my other questions.
This was eye-opening: "be cautious in your support of any campaign that paints all child workers with a broad brush, as that can be an injustice to children who use that as a route out of child poverty." Reminds me of advocacy to curtail the work of erotic dancers / strippers because of how it objectifies and demeans women - when, in fact, many of those women find it empowering and lucrative and feel anything but demeaned. Thorny topic, I know. But life is full of nuance and ambiguity. I wish more people could embrace that, rather than living in extremes.
Exactly. And it helps finance law school.
Okay I get that but paying someone well to do what they love (whether its exotic dancing or kids apprenticing or working in a way that is humane and doesn't get in the way of being a kid) is different than enabling corporate bohemiths to profit at the expense of individual human rights. We can support family owned cacao businesses, women owned cooperatives and other initiatives that get money directly into the pockets of families instead of wealthy shareholder.
Then an answer might be to go after the behemoths. I agree with Lucia that life is full of nuance. It’s not always pretty, but it deserves a listen.
Thank You, Lucia.
This piece invited a lot of reflection. As you said, a lot of nuance.
https://lilychili.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-chocolate?r=1ec82g&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
speaking of dance...https://lilychili.substack.com/p/listen-to-the-lyrics?s=w
Fascinating and heart warming at the same time.
An awe inspiring story, I'd love to visit your land and taste a hot cocoa to be nourished by mama-africa, as we said in Portuguese. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank You Jacqueline. You are warmly welcome anytime. Africa awaits you with open arms
Mama Africa! I love that! I thought only Africans said that.
I love following writers that cover esoteric themes like cocoa. So interesting.
Oooooh! The chocolate Taost! I'm gonna check out your substack!
Thank you, Scott.
Yet to read this and I am already very excited! 👏🏽
@kwame this was a lovely read and I enjoyed learning a little about you. I am passionate about a fairer market in cocoa production and trading and constantly looking into organisations trying to do better. I recently came across FairAfric chocolate all across Accra. They claim to be “premium quality organic chocolate...produced from tree to bar in rural Ghana. This wildly increases Africa's share of the value chain in the chocolate industry.” They also claim to pay the highest cocoa premiums in West Africa: 600 USD per ton of cocoa. I would love to pick your brain on this. That may require a discussion beyond Substack, if interested. But for the purpose of this public discussion I would love to know your thoughts on these efforts and if this is going far enough.
Dear Lerato, Thank you for your comment. I am yet to conduct an interview with FairAfric to understand their business model very well and delve deep into their claims on how they are supporting cocoa farmers in Ghana. So I wouldn't be able to provide an answer for now. FairAfric seem to be a great company but I mostly prefer to speak with them to ask further questions before forming my conclusions. I just finished an interview with KOA-Impact, who is into cocoa pulp processing in Ghana to understand their business model and operations and how it improves the farmer's livelihoods and net income. I will be publishing an article on it very soon. You will hear from me soon on FairAfric.
And also if child labor is sometimes better than not being able to work, how do we clearly hold companies accountable for child slavery, kidnappings and forced or coerced labor that to me is ethically unambiguous?
Exactly. If Child Labour is not properly defined with nuance, we risk sending alot of African children into poverty. Most African countries do not have welfare support policies in practices to for its children regardless of age or disability. So knowing that our economies are not as rich as that of the west, we are socialised to be resourceful and enterprising from a younger age to fend for our ourselves. The wish of an African parent is not to see the child work and study at the same time. However we are faced with a circumstance where finding a paid work is the only option for survival regardless of age. So you can imagine the devastating impact a policy that stops such a child from working can have on such a child.
Do you think that child labor would be needed beyond family apprentice type situations if the FCC were out of it? Studying and school...interesting topics. Studying and mastery are different from western style 19th century-21st century education, and even more messed up with sellout of teacher unions to Rockefellers, trilateralists, big tech. Check out Whitney Webb's work. She's always going against the narrative :)I think school itself is often just how the state conditions young minds, as opposed to true study where you learn a skill, trade or intellectual or spiritual ability that helps you serve your higher purpose as YOU within your community.
You describe the resiliency required to survive well!
On the side, I know you like GG - I loved his latest on intelligence/big tech
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/former-intelligence-officials-citing?s=r
I'd love to hear your thoughts too on how to get the FCC out of it and decolonialize it.
I have detailed out some suggestions on how to achieve this via https://cocoadiaries.substack.com/p/why-ghana-and-ivory-coast-should?s=w
"In this article, I would like to help Ghana and Ivory Coast with arguments on why leaving the FCC is the only way for both countries to take control of the sector as expected." Aho and Amen. My best love and support for your success to attain full sovereignty to nurture cocoa and be nurtured it without oppression of any kind, in peace and prosperity. I only recently learned that Trudeau is loyal to the Queen of England (Sworn secrecy to her, on secret matters,) the US/Canada have a lot more control over Ukraine than Ukranians...so much leads back to the continued attempts of conquest of the British Crown and its royal families and sub corporations, both in the US and Canada and and in Europe. May the light shine into every well-intentioned heart and bring an end to globalism.
Have you read uncensored on substack? If you're in for a deep dive (you may not agree with everything) it's a fascinating read here on substack. I don't share her views on all matters but some interesting stuff.
Interesting, I’d be interested to know his thoughts on some of the ways people are trying to solve these issues in Peru:
https://thepalladiumgroup.com/news/The-Cocoa-House-is-on-Fire-Can-We-Wake-Up-and-Change
Also see here a similar perspective on child labor here, from Malawi: https://thepalladiumgroup.com/news/Drawing-the-Line-Between-Child-Labour-and-Skills-Transfer
This article is excellent. It perfectly articulate the nuance that is not found in mainstream talking points when it comes to what is classified as child Labour. The frustration we face is how sustainability programmes in Africa are planned in the west. So these plans are weaved with the narratives and culture of the westerners hence leading to its counter-productiveness when implemented. What I can say is, The definition of child labour is political. For example the Diamond industry saw anti-child labour rhetoric being used to convince "Ethical" buyers to switch to lab-grown diamond. A similar situation is currently happening with the emergence of the lab grown chocolate. So how do you create a solution that works if the problem you intend to solve is incorrectly defined? If the child labour definition is nuanced, the numbers wouldn't be big enough to exaggerate the need to totally cut the farmer out of the supply chain to fix "Child Labour"
Really excellent thoughts, Kwame. I can see how that would be devastating economically. I am also concerned about the CRISPR tech used by Mars Inc and I imagine the others. Bill Gates and others who promote genetic edits and lab grown foods devastate the land, health and economies long term in the name of charity as far as I can tell from what I've observed. What is your take on his role in all this?
If you look at the deeper issues, the cocoa industry and all the others are owned by two companies. "Bloomberg has also referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser.
Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use."
The other company is Vanguard, which is the biggest investor in Blackrock. So if we look at the root, we can find only a very tiny minority. The whole people of Mother Earth, in all our glorious sovereign divinity are far more powerful!
Via Truth Unmuted
We have the same issue in the west of silencing black voices that don't conform to the "agenda"
https://lilychili.substack.com/p/racism-and-the-silencing-of-black?s=w
I went to Peru a couple of years ago and had the most extaordinary chocolate at the top of ^
I wonder what the influence would be if everyone asked their local grocers to stock truly ethical sources for chocolate and only bought those...also watch out for Blackrock buying up properties. Time to create share circles that operate in sovereignty; be beautiful on the inside and choose to create from unity we share rather than top down...share what we have in love, independent of social credit systems. So tired of seeing nations hurt because they aren't interested in participating in globalism as defined by WEF. We need to love our neighbor and go beyond the false polarities that keep us in-fighting among good people. Undo censorship, celebrate unity of humanity! YAY for all of us coming together in love. Let's gather around the chocolate table and bring about an unsetting of the un great reset and set our sovereign course for love and peace and prosperity for all! Aho.
Thank you Lily.
Exactly. Most times the voice of the African is not elevate to provide the uncomfortable perspective that may not run parallel with the existing narratives. When the African is giving the chance to freely participate and lead in discussions and decisions that directly affect us or is about us, we will be able to contribute meaningfully like that Malawian colleague did.
I would love to hear your experiences with the EU - as you have I'm sure gathered from my post I suspect their interests lie in hegemony and posturing rather than true sovereignty and wellbeing for African lives. I've seen the same in my very liberal university city. The liberals yell the loudest with the black lives matters signs and make the nicest corporate statements and have a lot of equity meetings but it's all puff. Most of the POC quit one equity meeting I am aware of as a result of administration ensuring the committees had no real autonomy to enact sovereign changes unless the conformed to leaderships agenda, which was essentially, "look good, don't change a thing." Do you know people in the EU who would be willing to sacrifice hegemony to support the sovereignty of Africa and the farmers therein? What is the best way for peopel who want to get to root causes to support true change that gets at the root rather than a plastic bandaid for a body filled with sepsis?
Very relatable interview. The experiences feel true because they are true with the experiences of the cocoa sector in Nigeria.
A thought provoking concept of child labour being a way out of poverty.
Exactly!
I would love to hear thoughts on differentiated and well-implemented/enforced policies that discern between child labor that is non-coercive and non-abusive and non-slavery versus that which is coercive, abusive, slave labor.
Lily, I don't have any experience that would qualify me to answer. I was responding to Kwame's personal experience. My experience of child labour, for want of a better word was delivering newspapers on my pushbike and doing jobs to raise money for charities. I didn't have to do it, I chose to do it. I suspect that Kwame's experience was totally different, but I was respecting that he took a different perspective and was able to raise himself out of the poverty trap, that he might otherwise have been trapped in by circumstances. I am not in favour of any scenario were children are coerced in any way that is abusive.
totally with you! I have no issue with kids contributing meaningfully to their communities - whether its contributing to families through "chores" or doing odd jobs for extra $. I'm more thinking the conversation could uplevel among us Westerners to talk about the larger ecosystems that would create a situation in which someone HAD to work as a child, and do the policies address undoing the hegemonies that lead to poverty in places like Africa via the FCC - do we tweak a policy a hair to the right or the left while leaving the real source of pain in place or or do we address the root cause - which I see as colonialism and exploitation. Kwame addresses this directly in the need to disentangle from the FCC in the article he linked under one of my other questions.
Curious your thoughts on this: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/child-labor-in-cocoa-belt-is-norway-wealth-fund-s-moral-dilemma
It looks like Mars Inc/Mars Wrigley is represented on the council (only three members) the board of directs of the FCC.
Here is a list of the voting members:
Trade
Mr E Bourgeois (Walter Matter SA)
Mr P Davis (S&D Sucden)
Mr A Delsart (Touton SA)
Mr M Stolz (Rockwinds)
Mr N de Wasseige ( Ecom Agrotrade Ltd)
Industry
Business to Consumer ("BTC")
Mr R Bergamasco (Ferrero Trading Lux SA)
Mr K Heffernan (Mars Wrigley Confectionery UK Ltd)
Mr P Leudet (Mondelez International)
Business to Business ("BTB")
Mr V Acursio (Natra Cacao SL)
Mr J Leuning (Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate)
Mr M Vashista (Olam International Ltd)
Production/Exportation
Mr V O Akomeah (Cocoa Marketing Company (Ghana) Ltd), alternate Mr F Amponsah-Doku
Mr K-D Z Bamba (Conseil du Café et du Cacao), alternate Mr P Kipre
Mr A A Murthada (Starlink Global & Ideal Ltd)
Mr E Poku (Niche Cocoa Industry Ltd)
I remember hearing about Mars Inc and its domination of the cocoa market in Ghana and elsewhere...