Addressing Labor Issues on Cocoa Farms
Developing an operational certification system for cocoa farming to improve the well-being of children, families and communities in the cocoa farming sector is a significant challenge. Other well-known efforts to address labor practices have focused on factory-produced goods or products with a more transparent and well-defined distribution chain.
For manufactured goods, interested parties can monitor labor conditions in individual factory operations. Typically, there are a finite number of facilities where a comparatively small number of employees report to work. In many cases, the goods produced at these sites can be tracked as they work their way through the supply chain.
In most factories, the presence of underage workers can be detected using appropriate investigative techniques. If a practice such as this is discovered, it is addressed as a clear-cut labor issue.
Cocoa, however, is a very different “product.” The crop is grown on literally millions of small, independently operated family farms worldwide – more than two million in West Africa alone. Unlike a network of factories, it is technically impossible to monitor labor practices on each of these farms over the crop’s 12-month growing cycle.
Moreover, children live on the family cocoa farm and their presence on these farms is not, by itself, a sign of a problem. It is common for children to help on family farms, in an appropriate role as members of the family, much as they do in Europe, North America, and other farming regions. Addressing labor issues must take into account such local practices while clearly identifying instances that are unacceptable under any circumstances.
At the same time, cocoa farmers face a number of challenges that can contribute to unacceptable labor practices, including limited access to schooling for their children, lack of awareness of age-appropriate roles for children on farms, and a very real requirement for manual labor to harvest and prepare the crop for sale. Addressing labor issues on cocoa farms requires going beyond the “symptoms” to get at the root issues.
These and other unique challenges confronted the industry, West African governments, and labor experts as they began work on a certification system for cocoa farming. Together, they developed a system that will improve the lives of children and families in cocoa farming communities, while taking into account the unique nature of cocoa farming in West Africa.
Each issue or challenge requires a unique approach.
Issue |
Cocoa Certification Approach |
2 million cocoa farms spread over 30,000 square miles in West Africa: monitoring all farms impossible
|
“Sampling” approach collects data from statistically representative number of farms to provide an accurate assessment of country’s cocoa farming labor practices |
Millions of cocoa beans, from thousands of farms, mixed together in each cocoa shipment; inconsistent chain of custody from farm to port |
Does not “certify” individual farms or beans; instead, drives continuous improvement across the sector and measures efforts to improve the well-being of children, families and communities |
Children working on family farms in a variety of ways – some appropriate, others not |
Helps sensitize communities and farmers on the issue and support the work of governments and other organizations to address community needs and labor issues |
Chocolate and cocoa companies do not own farms Labor practices involve legal issues, law enforcement, social services, community engagement |
Engages key stakeholders, especially West African governments, farmer groups, and community leaders in certification process, ensuring its success. |
Credibility of information produced by certification report is essential |
Independent verification of the process and the results |
The result is a system that will improve the lives of children and adults in West African cocoa farming communities by providing interested parties with a clear sense of labor conditions on cocoa farms and measuring progress. Another important consideration of equal importance: the cocoa certification program is designed to be expanded throughout the West African cocoa sector.