Why Your Easter Basket Has More Power Than You Think
Original article on Huffington Post
By Elan Emanuel, Senior Supply Chain Manager, Fair Trade USA
The year is 2012, and a massive storm has just swept through the Sinfra region of Côte d'Ivoire. In a matter of 24 hours, rooftops were pulled from small shanty houses, community infrastructure was destroyed, and the only school in the village of Koffikro was ripped to shreds. In the months to follow, students as young as 6 years old would be forced to walk seven kilometers to the next closest school, a four hour round trip through muddy, battered roads. For their parents--cocoa farmers making about $3-4 per day, and struggling to provide their children with at least some semblance of education--this was yet another devastating obstacle in a long line of hardships. The storm simply wiped out what little they had, further exacerbating conditions of already extreme poverty.
The bottom line is--African cocoa farmers are not thriving, they're struggling to survive. And unless cocoa farmers' lives improve soon, it may be increasingly difficult to keep delicious chocolate on our shelves (or in our Easter baskets).
