i left camp yesterday to come and visit kumasi. through a very random series of events, i found out that kumasi has a fair trade cocoa company (kuapa kokoo) that operates over 1000 'societies' (plantations.. sort of) around the country. thought it would be pretty cool if i could see where the cocoa is produced and then use that in cookies back at home.
sadly, you have to be more organized to actually go out and visit the sites... story of my life. but. i got to spend an hour or so with a woman who works at the company she was good enough to walk me through the positives and negatives of fair trade. to condense it all, here are some of the highlights:
- of all the cocoa they made, they expect to sell only 10% to fair trade suppliers this year. this 10% is higher than past years (2-8%) because of cadbury's new fair trade line. the corporation will buy 4500 tons of chocolate at the premium price, doubling what the company would normally sell. (who would have thought id ever
- this 10% can be produced by 2 of kuapa kokoo's 62 cocoa producing districts. currently the entire company is certified as fair trade but if things don't change on the demand side, they'll likely scale down how many districts are actually certified (long, labour intensive and expensive process to be certified)
- profits from the fair trade premium have and will continue to buy: schools, wells, sanitary facilities, training programs and capacity building initiatives
- kuapa kokoo trains their workers how to make the best cocoa possible. it takes way more time and labour than an average ghana cocoa producer, who would likely sell more of his shitty cocoa because of the lower price.. things like the length of time the cocoa ferments and dries alter the amount of sugar and flavouring that need to be added. this cocoa requires very little additives
- organic certification is still in the works. ghana is 'not yet equipped' for the export of organic cocoa.
cocoa is sold to divine chocolate in the UK and US. kuapa kokoo holds 35 and 45% of the two companies. divine chocolate is sold at 10 000 villages in uptown waterloo.
so.. chocolate will now hopefully come from these guys. just have to sort out some technicalities when im back at home. either way. very interesting morning. and you should all probably start buying from divine now... cocoa camino is good too.
cocoa aside, kumasi is a hell of a show. i attempted to take a tro tro from kuapa to the place im staying. a nice ghanaian helped me get on 'the right tro' but then the driver threw me off in the middle of west africa's largest market. which was not near my hostel. and was certianly not a place i could use the bathroom.. which was the main reason for going back to the hostel.
with an empty bladder i made my way back to the market and through the stalls of everything you could ever dream of. it spanned from cloth to knock off purses and underwear to cow feet to beads to vegetables. there was a surprising limit on the marriage proposals.. although maybe thats what people shouted at me in twi. living in my liberian bubble has left me totally illiterate when it comes to twi. it sucks.
so. after some indian food tonight - which has been missing in my diet since east africa - its back to the camp for one final blast. and then. home?
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