Cote d’Ivoirian Edmond Konan heads up Global Business Consulting Company (GBCC), a partner organisation to the Rainforest Alliance in Cote d’Ivoire, working with cocoa farmers and cooperatives to support them in achieving Rainforest Alliance certification. To mark this weekend’s International Day of Cooperatives, we’ve interviewed Edmond about his work and the importance of cooperatives in today’s market. Read the rest of this entry ?
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How the Rainforest Alliance is supporting the struggle against child labour
13/06/2011The 12th June was World Child Labour Day. Edward Millard, Director Sustainable Landscapes at the Rainforest Alliance talks about how the Rainforest Alliance works to prevent child labour on farms every day.
A child spraying chemicals. The Sustainable Agriculture Standard forbids children to use agrochemicals and forbids adults to spray them without protective clothing (photo credit: Agro Eco)
For the last ten years, public concern about children working illegally or being forced to do unsafe work has been closely linked to the chocolate industry. Since evidence of children being exploited in cocoa farms first reached mainstream media across the globe in 2000, consumers, politicians and activist groups have been asking the large companies what they are doing to ensure that child labour is not present in their supply chains.
In UK the issue has remained largely outside the political domain. By contrast, in the USA, two politicians, Congressman Eliot Engel and Senator Tom Harkin took an initiative to commit the industry to ensure that its chocolate was free of child labour. The resulting Harkin-Engel Protocol triggered a series of initiatives to address the problem, including forming an independent organization for education and monitoring, the International Cocoa Initiative, ICI (www.cocoainitiative.org), to which the industry gave funding support. The focus of ICI’s work has been Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s two largest suppliers of cocoa beans. Both governments passed laws and committed resources to support the effort to build awareness in communities of the need for children to attend school. Read the rest of this entry ?
Eat a bar of chocolate and support cocoa farmers
12/10/2010We like chocolate in Britain! We consume nearly 10% of the chocolate produced in the world, about 10kgs per person per year. Our consumption hasn’t been checked by the economic downturn. UK retail sales have risen by 3.1 percent in 2010, according to market research firm, Mintel, following a 4.6 percent rise in 2009 and 4.4 percent in 2008. Analysts point to the role chocolate plays as a comfort food when times are tough.
Not only are we consuming more chocolate but also more cocoa in our chocolate, as sales of dark chocolate grow. Concerned about health risks associated with eating too much milk and sugar, consumers are turning to the dark chocolates in increasing number and a new group of products has established itself on the market, promoting the particular cocoa origin and the percentage of cocoa contained in the finished product. A small group of countries are recognized by the International Cocoa Organization as having “fine flavour” cocoa- varieties that are especially aromatic and particularly suitable for these specialty chocolate bars.
Another trend of course is the growth of chocolate on sale in the UK market bearing the Rainforest Alliance seal – notably Galaxy by Mars and Côte d’Or by Kraft, but other smaller brands too, such as the Chocolate Truffle Company.
As we indulge ourselves in our chocolate bars, what does this increased consumption mean for the millions of cocoa farmers and their families around the world? It’s potentially good news, as cocoa prices have held up quite strongly. They reached record levels earlier this year and although they have dipped again over the past couple of months, the prospects of a cocoa farmer being able to sustain a family from the farm are better than a few years ago when prices were much lower.
But of course, how much farmers benefit depends not only on the cocoa price but a number of other factors, most importantly the quantity and quality of the cocoa they produce. Rainforest Alliance Certified farmers receive training and support to improve not only their social and environmental management but also their agricultural practices, learning new skills and sharing their own knowledge through farmer field schools. As a result, they are able to control better the pests and diseases that attack cocoa through good management practices, without the need for using more agrochemicals. An independent survey undertaken by the International Institute of Sustainable Development of 102 Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire found that, compared to a control group on non-certified farms, the group of certified farms achieved nearly 4 percent higher average gross revenue/hectare. This resulted from nearly 7 percent higher average yields and 5 percent higher average prices. These farmers have only been certified for one or at most two years, so going forward their farm performance should continue improving.
Mr. Ouarmé ATOME, 51 years old and married with a family of five, is the owner of two cocoa farms with a total area of 6.75 hectares. He is a member of UPADI, a cooperative based in Issia in central Côte d’Ivoire. He attended the Farmer Field School training sessions that Rainforest Alliance organised in collaboration with the Sustainable Tree Crops Program, a project sponsored by the US government and the chocolate industry. The school took place in the village of N’ Gorankro and enabled Mr Atome to acquire the knowledge necessary for the good management of his cocoa farm, which was to be certified by the Rainforest Alliance. During the training, he learned new improved methods of cocoa production including integrated crop and pest management, pruning of trees, raising of seedling nurseries, and general agroforestry. Following the training on shade trees, nursery settlement and preserving the seedlings of indigenous trees, Mr. Atome was able to inter-plant new varieties among the cocoa trees in his farm and obtain approximately 4.5 tonnes of cocoa beans per yield, compared to 3.5 tonnes in the previous year.
“I am now more convinced than ever before that adopting best practice will result in higher yields and better preservation of the environment. These results will encourage my children to seriously consider going into farming as a business.”
Mr Atome
Farmer families deciding to stay in cocoa farming, as opposed to abandoning the farm because they cannot earn a decent living, means that we will be able to go on enjoying chocolate and know that it is part of a sustainable system that conserves the environment and provides a reasonable livelihood to millions of cocoa farmers and their families.
The benefits of cooperative cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire
13/07/2010Having looked at a coffee farming cooperatives in our last blog entry we thought it would be interesting to look at other types of cooperative the Rainforest Alliance works with. Here Edward Millard looks a the benefits of cooperatives for cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.
Cooperative organizations feature strongly in the list of small holder groups that achieve Rainforest Alliance certification. By coming together in an organization, small holder farmers can aggregate their production and achieve a better price for their product. The cooperative gives them a better alternative to the local trader because it is a service organization managed by the farmers. Whereas traders usually aim to keep the farmers ignorant of market prices so that they can pay them the minimum, the purpose of a cooperative is to keep its members informed and pay the most that the market allows. An effective cooperative offers a range of other services to its members- not just buying and selling their production, but also providing credit at reasonable interest rates, making advance payments, providing inputs such as fertilizers and facilitating training and technical assistance. An agency providing technical assistance cannot visit hundreds of farmers individually; the cooperative provides the organizing unit for helping farmers improve their skills and practices.
A vital service that cooperatives provide for certification is establishing a traceability system. Each farmer member whose farm is certified for compliance with the practices of the Sustainable Agriculture Standard receives a number and every time the farmer sells to the cooperative, the sale is recorded. The production from certified farms is stored separately from that of non-certified farms so that if it is sold on preferable terms, as it usually is, then the benefit may go back to the farmer. Companies buying the cocoa, for example, derive a great benefit from this traceability because they have the assurance that the farm practices in their supply chain are sustainable.
Rainforest Alliance has certified nearly 50 cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. One of the first to achieve certification in 2007 is the Cooperative Agricole La Paix d’Issia (COPAPAIX), situated in one of the major production zones in the west-central region of the country. Formed in 2003, it brings together 700 farmers from the surrounding villages. Mr Désire Kouassi is President of the management Committee of COPAPAIX. He says:
“In my village certain people were not on speaking terms for a long time because of arguments. But since we started working together and learning together and realizing that we can benefit from the experience of others, people have started talking together again and fraternity and solidarity have been re-established, in a situation where the traditional elders had not been able to bring us together.”
Eradicating child labour- how Rainforest Alliance certification can help
12/06/2010On World Day Again Child Labour (12 June 2010), Edward Millard, Head of Sustainable Landscapes at the Rainforest Alliance looks at how certification can help protect children from exploitation.
Child in cocoa tree with machete
Employing children on farms when they should be at school or making young people undertake tasks that are dangerous or damaging to their developing bodies is clearly unacceptable practice. This was highlighted in the cocoa industry in 2001 and generated responses at government and industry level. The major chocolate companies signed an agreement with the US government to eradicate the worst forms of child and forced labour from their supply chains. They also funded an independent organisation, the International Cocoa Initiative, with the participation of trade unions and NGOs to undertake educational programmes in cocoa producing communities in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa producers.
Rainforest Alliance Certification supports eradicating child labour in three ways:
The root cause of abusive child labour is poverty – putting children to work instead of paying hired labour, or maybe because the parents can’t afford to send them to school. As poverty cannot be eradicated quickly, education is the key to quick improvements. Farmers who take part in training programmes for Rainforest Alliance certification also have to discuss the problems of children working and the rights of all children to attend school. Farmers do not want to put their children at risk and our training programme gives them the skills and knowledge on how to avoid it.
Child carrying cocoa pods
To obtain the rewards of certification, farmers must comply with the Sustainable Agriculture Standard. This prohibits farms from employing full- or part-time workers under the age of 15; and between 15 and 17 children must have written authorisation for employment signed by their parents or legal guardian. Workers between 15 and 17 years old must not work more than eight hours per day or more than 42 hours per week, their work schedule must not interfere with educational opportunities and they must not be assigned activities that could put their health at risk, such as the handling and application of agrochemicals or activities that require strong physical exertion. These are exactly the type of abuses that have been most commonly recorded: children carrying heavy loads of cocoa pods from the tree to the fermentation and drying centre, spraying agrochemicals without protection and climbing trees with machetes to reach the higher up pods.
To achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, each farm has to be visited by an internal auditor and an external auditor every year and random checks may occur at any time. These auditors are recruited and trained in country, not simply flow in from the developed world, with no connection to the country or understanding of its culture. This monitoring system cannot guarantee that child labour never occurs on any day of the year but combined with the education, it provides the best assurance possible. The governments also have their own monitoring system to check for incidences of child labour, so the certification auditors are supporting government policy directly by providing supplementary monitoring activity.
Child labour, though, is a complex issue. Helping the family on the farm is natural to most African children who live in the countryside, as it is in many farming families throughout the world. As long as they are not missing school or exposed to dangerous tasks, it is not difficult to argue it is wrong. The Sustainable Agriculture Standard allows minors, who are part of the family, between 12 and 14 years old, to work part-time on family farms as long as their schedule, including school, transportation and work does not exceed ten hours on school days or eight hours on non-school days. Interpreting what does and doesn’t constitute child labour requires an understanding of local culture and tradition. For this reason, Rainforest Alliance’s policy of training and accrediting auditors from Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana is vey important.
Working with cocoa farmers in West Africa
01/04/2010
Rainforest Alliance senior trainer, Edmond Konan, with one of the cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire; credit Bettina Mueller-Roettig
You may have seen the recent BBC Panorama programme, The Bitter Truth of Chocolate, which addressed issues of child labour in the cocoa growing regions of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. As more and more chocolate being sold on the UK’s high street is bearing credible certification marks such as the Rainforest Alliance’s green frog seal you may be wondering what we are doing in West Africa to work with cocoa farmers to help improve their livelihoods, living standards and tackle the issue of child labour.
The Rainforest Alliance promotes the Sustainable Agriculture Standard and certifies farms and groups of small holder farmers that comply with this Standard. We have been working in Côte d’Ivoire for four years and in Ghana for two. To become Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa farmers spend about six months preparing for a certification audit. During this time they receive training in the Standard, which comprises a range of socially and environmentally responsible practices, as well as good agricultural practices. At any one time we have between 12 to 15 trainers working in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Principle 5 of the standard has detailed criteria about employment conditions, including children working on farms. These criteria have been cross referenced to the law in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so that farmers, group managers and auditors are all aware of the requirements of both the law and the certification Standard. Specifically, the Standard:
· Prohibits direct or indirect employment of full- or part-time workers under the age of 15 or the minimum legal age, whichever is higher
· Requires farms contracting minors between the ages of 15 and 17 to keep detailed records of length and type of work carried out (they may not work more than eight hours per day, apply any agrochemicals or undertake any tasks affecting their health or safety), they must ensure remuneration is received and the permission of the parents or guardians is obtained
· Allows minors between 12 and 14 years old to work part-time on family farms, only if they are family members or neighbours in a community where minors have traditionally helped with agricultural work. The schedule for these minors including school, transportation and work must not exceed ten hours on school days (including the time they spend in school) or eight hours on non-school days, and farm work must not interfere with educational opportunities.
For the full text, see www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture
The Rainforest Alliance certification system supports the elimination of child labour in three ways:
Woman farmer, Daloa, Côte d’Ivoire; women take part in the training program and are very conscious of their children’s welfare.
1. Through the training programme it builds awareness among farmers and communities of the welfare of their children. I have taken part in training programmes where farmers stood up and told how they now realized the importance of educating their children and not exposing them to unhealthy or unsafe work in cocoa farms, such as carrying heavy loads or using a machete. From the UK to Africa to Australia, farmers are famously reluctant to change what they and their ancestors have always done, so hearing this makes me realize our approach can work.
2. Rainforest Alliance specifically collaborates with the International Cocoa Initiative and the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme, which are in turn supporting government efforts to educate cocoa growing communities about child welfare and monitor employment practices.
3. The certification system requires continuous visits to farms by internal inspectors and an annual external audit to record employment practices. It provides an incentive to farmers to comply with the standard by offering new market opportunities once they become certified.
In spite of our vigilance and care, sometimes abuse can slip through this education and verification approach. It is impossible to monitor every cocoa farm every day of the year. For this reason, the Rainforest Alliance does not claim that its certification system is a guarantee. In countries where poverty and traditions drive unacceptable employment practices in several industries, no credible system can make such guarantees. But the combination of education and auditing is the best assurance possible that child labour is not present in a Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM farm.
We are very careful to ensure that cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms remains separated from cocoa from non-certified farms throughout the supply chain. We require certified cocoa to be documented and separated as it is distributed through the supply chain from farmer to group to exporter to importer and processor. This chain of custody system enables the manufacturer of a cocoa or chocolate product using the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal to know that the cocoa supplied to its factory has not been mixed with cocoa from non certified sources.
Tackling issues of child labour in West Africa is one of our greatest challenges. But by increasing the number of farms that achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, we are working with other NGOs, government agencies and international bodies to educate farmers and eliminate the use of children on cocoa farms. The best incentive for farmers to embrace the Sustainable Agriculture Standard, which includes many other social and environmental requirements that help improve quality of life, is if they have a secure market and can sell their crops to forward-thinking companies like Kraft and Mars. That’s where consumers come in. So look out for the green frog seal.
Edward Millard
Director, Sustainable Landscapes
Rainforest Alliance
