Fair trade and the cocoa industry by the numbers

Stat house
April 2003

Fair trade and the cocoa industry by the numbers
The International Cocoa Organization, or ICCO, estimates that there are approximately 14 million people directly involved in cocoa production.

Globally, 6.6 billion pounds of cocoa were produced in the 99/00 harvest season.

America is the world's largest chocolate consumer. In 2000, the US imported 729,000 tons of cocoa beans/processed products, ate 3.3 billion pounds of chocolate and spent $13 billion on it.

Cocoa farmers receive about 1 penny for a typical candy bar that sells for $.60 (1.92 oz, cocoa solids averaging 20 percent).

A 1998 report from UNICEF stated that some Ivory Coast farmers use child slaves, many from poor neighboring countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo.

The US State Department's year 2000 Human Rights Report acknowledged that some 15,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee and cocoa plantations in northern Ivory Coast in recent years.

A June 15, 2001 document released by the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Labor Organization reported that trafficking in children is widespread in West Africa.

West African economies are critically dependent on cocoa. Cocoa revenues account for more than 33 percent of Ghana's total export earnings and 40 percent of the Ivory Coast's total export earnings.

West Africa has been the center of world cocoa cultivation for the last sixty years, today producing over 67 percent of the world's crop. Ivory Coast is the giant in world production—with a 95 percent increase in output over the 1980s. It now holds 43 percent of the world market.

90 percent of the world's cocoa is grown on small family farms of 12 acres or less.

The Fair Trade Certified production criteria guarantee a minimum price and insure that no child or forced labor is used. The criteria also stipulate that farmers' organizations should be organized democratically, and that plantation workers should be able to participate in trade union activities. Fair Trade producers are monitored at least once a year.

Fair Trade cocoa is produced by cooperatives representing about 42,000 farmers from 8 countries: Ghana, Cameroon, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Belize.

In 2000, Fair Trade cooperatives produced 89 million pounds of cocoa, but only 3 million pounds were sold at Fair Trade prices.

For more information:
Global Exchange: Fair trade, not slavery, child labor, and poverty
Find out how you can help in SOTE's Idea Exchange

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