How many of us list chocolate in our top 5 favourite things?  Those velvet hearts filled with delicacies on Valentine’s Day, the annual Easter Egg Hunt, chocolate balls at the bottom of my Christmas stocking, the Halloween loot bag filled with treats galore…and those are just the “occasions” for chocolate.  I’ve also got to include my daily trips to the vending machine for the 3pm craving at coffee break, the mad dashes for a double mocha, smuggling my chocolate treats into the movie theatres and then the chocolate chip cookies that have become staples in my home.

Yep…I’ve gotten a bit chubbier over the years as my passion for chocolate continues unabated.  Imagine my horror when I started trying to incorporate “greener” practices into my everyday life, and learned about the dirty little secrets of my favourite vice.

The Ivory Coast, which produces 40-70% (depending upon the source) of the world’s chocolate supply has a long documented history of child labour.   Save the Children reports that there are approximately 600,000 children working in the cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, with an estimated 15,000 children who have been kidnapped or sold into slavery. The children are treated brutally and life expectancy among child slave workers is low.  And while some of the farms are family farms, the children and adults are working with toxic industrial chemicals (many of which have been banned for agricultural use in Canada.)  Child and adult workers work under horrific conditions, receive little or no pay, no health benefits and no prospect of education.

In addition to the exploitative labour practices are the environmental implications.  Forty years ago, cocoa bean plants grew naturally in the shade of rainforests, but with the surge in demand for chocolate, farming practices changed to increase the yield.  Rainforests were burned to make way for massive fields for planting, all in the direct sun.  While the yield increased, the trees were much more prone to disease.  To kill the bugs, pesticides and fertilizer use became widespread, ultimately resulting in contaminated ground water and soil erosion.   Some chemicals “such as lindane, a persistent organic pollutant banned in many countries, turned up in EVERY sample of chocolate tested in the late nineties by the UK’s Pesticide Action Network”  (Ecoholic).

So what to do?

Purchase Fair Trade Certified labelled chocolates, which are the only ones that are certified to be free from exploited child labour.  To avoid chemicals in your chocolate, ensure you buy organic chocolate.  Some great brands of fair trade and organic chocolate include Camino Cocoa,  Cloud Nine, Endangered Species, and Vital Choice.  For a lengthier list, check out Stop Chocolate Slavery.

In June 2008, the International Labour Rights Forum produced a report assessing 2001’s Cocoa Protocol; some of the findings remain dismal, but there are glimmers of improvement by some of the West African governments and some corporations, primarily in Europe.  For example in 2008, Nestle in the UK guaranteed that its Kit Kat bar (1/4 of Nestle’s total chocolate sales) would be fair trade.  Last March, Cadbury committed to sourcing Fairtrade cocoa for Dairy Milk chocolate bars and drinking chocolate in the UK markets (approximately $335million CDN). Nestlé is investing over $100M to address key economic, social and environmental issues faced by their farming communities.

The report – a REALLY informative read – provides recommendations for companies, West African governments, European & North American governments, multilateral agencies and consumers.  For us consumers, we need to do the following:

• Reward companies with ethical integrity in supply chains- companies that can tell you how the farmers and workers that produced your chocolate were treated.
• Continue to demand that world’s largest chocolate manufacturer’s answer to the question as to how you can be assured no exploited or trafficked child labour was used in the making of their products. (Campbell, Athreya)

I still have those 3pm cravings, but if it’s going to be chocolate, I do my best to ensure it is produced in an ethically responsible manner.  Fair trade and organic chocolate is pricier than regular chocolate, but it’s worth it knowing that I’m not supporting child labour.  I also tend to buy less chocolate, so that’s a bonus for the waistline.

Useful Resources:
The Cocoa Protocol: Success or Failure – Brian Campbell, Bama Athreya
Global Exchange
Save the Children
Bitter Chocolate – Carol Off
Ecoholic – Adria Vasil
Green For Life – Gil Deacon