Death By Chocolate

by Patrick Dubois (Originally published in the January/February 2008 issue of Canada EarthSaver)

For many people, it doesn’t take much exposure to the reality of factory farms to inspire new food choices. You don’t even need much emotional connection to the animals involved to not want to be supporting their abuse. Why give money to companies that treat sentient beings so abhorrently, while polluting our environment and our bodies? When we find we don’t need to, we naturally, compassionately stop.

So, if you’d never eat veal because you don’t support calves being taken from their mothers and kept in cruel and inhumane conditions, would you support similar treatment of humans? Sadly, many consumers of chocolate do exactly that.

Canadians, on average, consume roughly 12 pounds of chocolate per year. It is marketed as a fantastic indulgence, now even a health food, and the only second thoughts we have are what over-consumption might do to our appearance. Elite brands labelled "Swiss" or "Belgian" imply some dignified European heritage, but all chocolate comes from the tropics, and all chocolate has a history of conquest, colonization and unimaginable abuses of humanity and nature.

Currently, much of the world’s cocoa beans (from which chocolate is made) come from West Africa, particularly Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), from farms controlled by foreign corporations that take advantage of destitute locals. Their Prime Minister, at the mercy of multinationals, says that the price they get for cocoa is only one-tenth of what is needed to eliminate forced labour. Even that price, however, would be a small fraction of what consumers actually pay. A farmer may be lucky to earn $5 a month from their labour, and be exposed to toxic chemicals long ago banned here.

EarthSave founder John Robbins describes what happens to children bought (under false pretenses) or abducted to work on some cocoa farms: "These children, usually 12-to-14-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again." This modern form of slavery is even more abusive than what was outlawed in the States generations ago, and in some ways is even worse that what some of our food animals endure.

What keeps this injustice going is simple deception and denial. Just as the livestock industry leverages our affection for happy cartoon animals, the chocolate industry mines our endless pit of self-indulgence. They have a much easier job, too – chocolate doesn’t drip the blood of thousands of abducted children, but it’s still in there. The popular media "good for you / bad for you" debate is simply distraction. What matters is not whether "you deserve it" – what matters is whether some child deserved to be kidnapped and beaten for it.

Thankfully, some organizations have sought to break the tradition of oppression through establishing ethical trading practices by which cocoa growers can get a living wage and not be forced to pollute their land and their bodies. Fair Trade certification is becoming more popular and is supported by social and environmental activist groups like Oxfam, Amnesty International, Sierra Club. Google "fair trade chocolate" for an introduction to the good work many people are doing.

Here are some of the brands I found in Vancouver that are either Certified Fair Trade, or claim that their chocolate is ethically traded: björnsted, Clif Bar, Cocao Camino, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Denman Island Chocolate, Divine, Ecco Bella, Endangered Species Chocolate, Green and Black's, Newman's Own Organics, Rapunzel Pure Organics, and Zazubean. On Commercial Drive I found nine of those brands sold within a two block search. Also, any organically grown chocolate will have much better labour and environmental practices, even if not certified Fair Trade. If your local store doesn’t carry some of these, insist that they do.

The excuse I most often hear for not buying ethical chocolate is that it costs too much. If price is an issue, ask how much a child’s life is worth.