Radio FM4

Kate Farmer

Cutting to the chase

Alle Stories

Erstellt am: 28. 11. 2013 - 15:37 Uhr

The bitter side to the sweet season

Reality Check: Make Chocolate Fair, Berlusconi loses senate seat, Egyptian women protesters imprisoned, Brazil and the World Cup, Symptoma

Greenpeace/Georg Mayer

Finding "fair" Nikolos can be a challenge if you don't know what to look for

Hundreds of thousands of chocolate products will be bought and distributed next week when we hit the annual Nikolo bonanza. But while we all indulge our sweet teeth, there is a good chance we well be unwittingly supporting child labour and slavery. That, unquestionably, leaves a bitter aftertaste, but Südwind and Greenpeace are calling on all of us to help "Make Chocolate Fair", and they have conducted a market check showing which products we can enjoy with a clear conscience.

At present, only 5% of chocolate sold in Austria is certified, guaranteeing that it conforms to international labour and environmental standards.

I was certainly surprised at that 5%, especially when you consider how many people say they would prefer to buy "fair" goods, but with chocolate, it's not just consumer choices, there is a problem with manufacturers living up to their promises, too.

Südwind

Cocoa prices have halved since 1980, putting increasing pressure on small farmers

For decades, manufacturers drove cocoa prices down to make bigger profits, and suppliers who used to make a good living from their farms began to be starved out of market. Cheap cocoa from uncertified sources became the norm, and today, despite numerous pledges in the past, certification is still a relative rarity, and "fair chocolate" something of a niche market.

Cocoa farming, especially in Africa, is notorious for child labour and even slavery. In a sector in which the vast majority of farmers are small enterprises, monitoring labour conditions is almost impossible. At the same time, the buyers' market is dominated by a few large corporations - and competition between them has kept downward pressure on cocoa prices, meaning the farmers get less and less for their products and have to produce more and more cheaply.

Südwind

In the face of falling prices, many cocoa farmers can only survive by keeping the children home from school to help on the farm

Stopping the rot, so to speak, will not be easy, and according to Bernhard Zeilinger of Südwind, consumer power is key. Pressure needs to come from ordinary consumers, both in the form of petitioning and in refusing to buy uncertified products.

While changing the industry will take time, we can make a start straight away by looking for the labels that mean the chocolate we buy is "fair": Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and UTZ

Over the holiday, we will be buying a lot of chocolate to make children here happy. By simply paying attention to the labels, we can help make sure the children in the cocoa producing lands have a better chance of a happy life, too.