The dark business of chocolate

Since Côte d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer of cocoa beans and I'm a big fan of chocolate, it was inevitable that I would end up checking out a cocoa plantation during my stay here. I had already received multiple invitations from friends and strangers, so one fine dusty Saturday I embarked on a rickety moped to visit one of them in a little village about 10km from Abengourou. Our host was the son of the owner, a jovial fellow named Max who is also a relative of the Indénié King (pictured above).

He took us on a two-hour tour inside the plantation whle we sucked on the sweet sap covering the cocoa beans of a freshly-cut pod. Afterwards we went fishing (without much success), and finished up the day with some fried bananas and a beer. Quite the perfect day.

At one point, while I was taking photos, Max asked me to make sure no children were pictured since there are big fines for plantation owners who employ children. I didn't see any doing any work, just village children playing around but apparently it's a huge problem in the cocoa industry. And not only are child labor practices common, but unfortunately also child trafficking - mostly from neighboring Mali.

Another thing I didn't know was that Côte d'Ivoire only exports its huge cocoa bean production, not processing any of it to make chocolate domestically. I was told that there's only one chocolate company in the country, Chocodi which used to be Swiss until last year when it was bought out by an Ivorian group, that actually makes chocolate locally. But it seems that they make it with cocoa butter processed in Europe that they have to import, even though it's made of Ivorian beans*. Such is the cocoa business.

Also, it turns out that at the beginning of this month cocoa prices reached a peak, the highest in the last 25 years due to disease affecting yields. Although I'm wondering how they calculate the prices since, according to articles like this one on Les Afriques, Côte d'Ivoire doesn't know how many tonnes it exports since the sacks leave the harbors with a "theoretical weight", but are not actually weighed.

* I know this sounds strange, and I haven't researched this myself - that's what a guy working for the International Cocoa Organization in Abengourou told me