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Ghana: Chocolate makers steadily record profits while cocoa producers barely earn a living | Africanews

"There's big money in chocolate -- but definitely not for farmers," said Oxfam International's interim executive director. The world’s four

Africanews

In a report published Thursday (May 11) Oxfam said earnings for US companies Hershey, Mars and Mondelez in addition to Italy’s Ferrero and Swiss peers Lindt & Spruengli and Nestle had increased since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, a period when inflation has skyrocketed. The world’s four largest public chocolate corporations [Editor’s Note: Hershey, Lindt, Mondelēz and Nestlé] together made nearly $15 billion in profits from their confectionary divisions alone since the pandemic broke. THis amount was up by an average 16 percent since 2020. The giants paid out on average more than their total net profits (113 percent) to shareholders between 2020 and 2022.

At the same time, an Oxfam survey of more than 400 cocoa farmers in Ghana – the second-largest global producer of the commodity – found their net incomes had fallen by an average of 16 percent since the same period.

For women, the average drop was 22 percent, it added.[…]

The charity claimed that up to 90 percent of Ghanaian cocoa farmers do not earn a living income, “meaning they cannot afford enough food or other basics such as clothing, housing and medical care. Adding that "many of the 800,000 farmers in the country survive on just $2 a day.”

The NGO also noted that while Ghana produces about 15% of the world’s beans, it receives only about 1.5% of the sector’s estimated $130 billion annual global earnings. We ‘do everything we can to help’[…]

Oxfam’s Behar added on Thursday that chocolate giants needed “to put their money where their mouth is”.

“They must rid themselves of their colonial legacy of extracting raw materials and keeping farmers in poverty while making astronomical profits for their rich shareholders,” he added.

12 May 23