Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana will not take part in the World Cocoa Foundation meeting which will take place in Brussels on October 26 and 27, 2022; this is the decision taken by cocoa regulators in these two countries who highlight “a dispute over the origin differential, or premium, for contracts for the 2023/24 campaign”.
The Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) and the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) will therefore not be represented at this major meeting of the private cocoa sector, as a sign of protest. Indeed, Abidjan and Accra have agreed to increase their premiums for the coming season, in favor of the planters, but the chocolate multinationals do not approve of the increased prices.
Civil society in both countries welcomed the approach of the sector authorities. The Ivorian Platform for Sustainable Cocoa and the Ghana Civil-society Cocoa Platform “congratulate the government and regulators” of their respective countries in a joint statement, “for the bold and unprecedented decision to boycott the meeting of World Cocoa partners Foundation which takes place in Brussels”.
“We may not always align ourselves with COCOBOD and CCC decisions, but we fully support this action and the reasons given for the boycott. We believe it is high time for the world to recognize the double standards policy of the cocoa and chocolate multinationals, particularly with regard to the fixing of cocoa prices and the deterioration of the living conditions of cocoa farmers in because of their egocentric interests and their quest for maximizing profits without any desire to distribute the profits along the value chain,” they explain.
The two platforms recall that « Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana account for 65% of global cocoa production, but farmers in these two countries earn less than 6% of the total income of the chocolate industry, valued at around 130 billions of dollars a year.
This has “resulted in high levels of poverty and hardship for cocoa farmers in the two largest cocoa producing countries in the world. Today, cocoa producers do not live, they only survive », deplore the platforms, adding that « this unfortunate situation » is due, among other things, to the « refusal of multinational cocoa and chocolate companies to pay the fair price for cocoa beans. Most hide behind their so-called sustainability schemes to avoid paying farmers a living income.”
“By boycotting this flagship gathering of the private sector in Brussels, the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are sending a strong signal, but it is also a cry from the heart. The question of the price of cocoa must be placed at the center of the discussion on the sustainability of cocoa as a matter of social justice. As civil society, we fully support this position and hope that the world will take notice and denounce the private sector for its nefarious and unfair cocoa pricing practices,” the statement concludes.
The Ivorian Platform for Sustainable Cocoa and the Ghana Civil-society Cocoa Platform include farmers, professional farmers’ organizations (grassroots cooperative societies, Unions and Federations of cooperatives), small-scale processors, media and civil society organizations working in the cocoa sector
By OMA Newsletter N° 910 of 25/10/2022
Article published under the direction of Dr. Najib Kettani
The OMA, NGO with an Intercontinental vocation
For the development of cultural exchanges
Valuing human potential
The promotion and consolidation of Africa’s development, and
Inter-African integration
