There will be no Ivorian and Ghanaian officials this Wednesday, October 26 in Brussels for the opening of the meeting of the partners of the World Cocoa Foundation. Accra and Abidjan are protesting against the fact that multinationals in the sector are still refusing to increase a premium paid to cocoa producers. The NGOs, which plead for an improvement in the income of farmers, applaud this firmness of the authorities of the two countries.
It’s another clap of thunder in an already stormy sky. The boycott of the Brussels meeting by the Ivorian and Ghanaian authorities reflects the persistent unease between the two cocoa giants and the sector’s multinationals, which refuse to integrate a bonus allowing to increase the purchase price to planters.
This empty chair policy is applauded by NGOs such as the Ivorian Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, which advocates an increase in the price of the bean, especially in this period of high inflation. Bakary Traoré, Executive Director of the NGO IDEF (Initiatives for Community Development and Forest Conservation), member of the platform, speaks:
” When you look at the production of chocolate, you have milk, cocoa, milk and sugar. The price of sugar has gone up, the price of milk has gone up, but the price of cocoa is only going down. And why ? Because sugar and milk are produced in northern countries and northern farmers must be helped. But those of the South, therefore of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, who cares, it’s not our problem. Nope ! This must be able to change. Not only is this unfair, but it’s borderline immoral. »
The Africans also hope to rally European public opinion. In this regard, the Ivorian and Ghanaian leaders are threatening to apply more sustainable cocoa programs implemented by industrialists in the North. Programs that some NGOs refer to as greenwashing and hypocrisy.