Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Get Your Cadbury


Candadians rejoice! Today Cadbury announced that their Dairy Milk line will be fair trade in Canada by as early as next summer.
Australia and New Zealand will also go fair trade in 2010, officials for the chocolate company say. Cadbury announced earlier this year that British and Irish markets would also make the change to fair trade; that change is already going into effect.
Here's the good news: around the globe, about 1 in 4 Dairy Milk sales will be fair trade certified next year. The bad? The other three-quarters of sales--including the U.S. market--that will not be.
But let's focus on the positive here. Cadbury officials say that they will sell four times more fair trade cocoa in 2010 than they did in 2008. Cocoa farmers in Ghana, the country that will reap the benefits of the swap to fair trade, are expected to sell 15,000 more tonnes in 2010 than in 2008.
Here's what one cocoa farmer, Francis Sampson Kwesi, 48, said about how the swap to fair trade will help him (albeit to Cadbury public relations flacks):
"One of the main benefits is that I can invest the proceeds out of the cocoa in things such as the upkeep of the children’s school fees, as well as in developments for the whole community, such as building roads. It helps us to have a higher standard of living, as although the land here [in Ghana] is good for cocoa growing, when we are not in the season of cocoa, we need everything else to help make the environment more conducive for cocoa growing.”


OK, here are my thoughts. In the U.S., Cadbury Dairy Milk products are produced by Hershey. Can't we, here in the States, encourage these chocolate companies to produce and sell fair trade chocolate right here at home?
This is an old campaign by Green America that we've promo'd before, but feel free to jump on board again and encourage Hershey to go fair trade.
Why?
I'm so glad you asked. About 75% of the world's chocolate is produced in Ghana and its neighboring country, the Ivory Coast. Those in the know estimate that literally hundreds of thousands of children are working illegally in cocoa plantations in these two countries. (In fact, 50 children were freed from working illegally on these plantations in an Interpol operation this June. These children were purchased for cheap labor by plantation owner needing ready hands. Read about it here.)
True fairness would mean that the chocolate we love and enjoy is made by people who are able to enjoy their lives as well. It would mean that our pleasures would not require the pain of others.

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