Cocoa, kesako?
The cocoa tree gives about 80 pods per year that take 4 to 6 months to mature. Each one has about 40 seeds, fermented for 6 to 8 days, then cleaned and dried for two weeks in the sun to obtain cocoa beans. They are then sent to the factory for processing. The roasting at about 120°C lasts 20 to 30 minutes to purify them from foreign bodies, before crushing, grinding and refining. A cocoa paste is obtained which, after pressing, will give cocoa butter and powder. Mixed with sugar and/or milk powder, it will give chocolate, dark, milk or white. In Abidjan, there are two local chocolate makers who use 100% Ivorian cocoa with exotic flavors
Suzanne's sweets. Suzanne Kabanni, the only female master chocolate maker in West Africa, offers in her store more than 350 references of chocolates with exotic flavors: toasted coconut, gianduja, puffed rice, peanut and caramel, pistachio cream, coffee or vanilla, candied ginger praline, nougat, cashew nuts, ginger caramel, cinnamon hazelnut... Choice and originality
My Choco. Unique in West Africa for its raw confection, the organic cocoa beans are dried in the sunlight, crushed by bicycle and the packaging is made of recycled paper. Directed by a Franco-Ivorian woman, the team, 80% of whom are women, aims to highlight the work of the planters, who are not always paid their fair share. Chocolates with coconut milk caramel, sesame, cashew nut praline, passion ganache... the choice is tempting.
The history of cocoa in Ivory Coast
The cocoa tree is native to South America and was imported into Africa by colonists in the 19th century. In 1939, production did not exceed 55,000 tons. It was really born under the impulse of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, himself a planter and creator of the first Ivorian farmers' union in 1944, before becoming the Father of the Nation at independence in 1960. Production then tripled to reach 300,000 tons in 1970. Historically developed in the south-east of the country (Abengourou, Akoupé), intensive production began in the south-west of the country (Daloa, Soubré, San Pedro) attracting many people from the north of the country, but also from Burkina Faso and Mali.
But in the early 1980s, the price of cocoa collapsed, depriving the state of its redistributive capacity. Fate took its toll with a drought that devastated 250,000 hectares of coffee and cocoa in 1984. In 1987, the country bought cocoa from farmers at twice the market price. But Houphouët-Boigny was forced to suspend repayment of the country's $10 billion debt, and then to halve the purchase price of cocoa from farmers to bring it into line with the world price, breaking the contract of trust he had signed with the farmers who made up his base. He decided to freeze exports in order to force world prices to rise. But he had to accept the austerity plans of the IMF and the World Bank, and downsize the civil service. In November 1989, he resigned himself to selling his huge stock of cocoa to the big traders, at half the price he had bought...But the years of political and military crisis disrupted the sector until the political stabilization under the Ouatarra era. In 2011, a first reform put the state back at the center of the sector and encouraged investment in aging plantations, the Conseil Café Cacao was created, a minimum guaranteed price was reinstated, as well as a system of early sale of 80% of the harvest.
The fair trade sector
Today, nearly 200 fair trade cocoa cooperatives, bringing together more than 120,000 producers, are certified. Labelling must meet three simple but indisputable criteria: no child labour, a decent minimum income for farmers, compliance with regulatory standards and transparency on the pesticides used. Fair trade (which, despite its progress, represents only 10% of national production) will total 150,000 tonnes in 2018, compared to 25 tonnes in 2004! Exporters and cooperatives benefit from a premium in addition to the conventional price set, between 40 million and 250 million FCFA (60,000 to 380,000 euros). Two-thirds of the premiums granted go to the cooperative and exporters, and one-third to the villages, enabling the construction of schools and dispensaries and the purchase of water pumps and solar panels that improve the living conditions of the farmers and their families. But the share of fair trade cocoa remains marginal in national production and wages are not increased.
A purchase price that is still too low
Cocoa currently accounts for 10% of Côte d'Ivoire's GDP, 40% of export earnings, employs one million producers and provides a livelihood for nearly 5 million people directly and indirectly. There are more than 250,000 hectares planted with cocoa, and San Pedro is the world's leading cocoa port. Despite this, however, world prices are still too low, which means that the producers of "brown gold" are the poorest in Côte d'Ivoire and pocket only 20% of the profits. Currently the price is 750 FCFA per kilo, or 6% of the total value of the international chocolate sector, crumbs.
In June, the governments of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana (60% of world production between them) decided to suspend bean sales for the 2020 and 2021 harvests as long as traders, processors and chocolate makers refused to submit to a floor price of $2,600 per tonne. At the same time, the Coffee-Cocoa Council (CCC), the regulator of the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire, decided to set a ceiling of 2 million tonnes as of 2020 in order to raise prices and thus set a floor price acceptable to producers by stopping the renewal of current plantations. A floor price of CFAF 1,100 could give hope to nearly 20% of the population (producers and their families) to obtain decent living conditions and reach an acceptable economic level not only with material but also wage improvements.
