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Lupercalia by Annibale Carracci (15601609). Wikimedia Commons. Artist: Annibale Carracci (15601609). The photo is in the book Le storie di Romolo e Remo di Ludovico Agostino e Annibale Carracci in Palazzo Magnani a Bologna of Andrea Emiliani (Modena 1986). Some say Valentines Day originated with three Christian martyrs all named Valentine, one of whom secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. Others claim the holiday dates back to Lupercalia, a debaucherous, wine-fueled winter fertility rite, in which Roman men and women paired off. The 14th century poet Chaucer first popularized Valentines Day as a time to celebrate love, musing every bird cometh to choose his mate on Seynt Valentynes day. Over the next four centuries, the tradition of Valentines Day love letters blossomed. But when was chocolate added to the romance?It took a marketing genius. Up until the mid 1800s, people drank hot chocolate, but sweet chocolates were nowhere to be found. Richard Cadbury hit on the idea of using the excess cocoa butter from manufacturing hot chocolate to make eating chocolates. He packaged the sweet chocolates in lovely heart-shaped boxes adorned with Cupids and rosebuds, and marketed them around Valentines Day. The association of chocolate with Valentines Day took off. But is chocolate all sweet?The bitter side of chocolateLike many of you, I love chocolate. So recently, I was shocked and disappointed to discover that chocolate is just behind the notorious greenhouse gas emitter beef in terms of carbon emissions per kg of food produced. Cows burp out the strong greenhouse gas methane, which is largely responsible for their outsized climate emissions. But what could be the source of high emissions from chocolate?Note that beef farm emissions occur mainly on the farm (brown section of bar in graph) as a result ... [+] of methane burped out by cows. For chocolate, the majority of emissions come from land use change (green section of bar), which is a result of deforestation.Our World in Data. Creative Commons. MORE FOR YOUTurns out the answer is deforestation. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, deforestation contributes 20% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Over the last 60 years, Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together grow 60% of the worlds cocoa, have lost 80-94% of their forests. One-third of that loss was from trees cut down to grow cocoa. As forests are cut down, massive amounts of CO2 previously stored in the trees and soils are released into the atmosphere. The problem is compounded because live trees that would have continued to absorb carbon from the atmosphere into the future are gone.Logging in Cameroon, another important cocoa producing country.Photokadaffi, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsThe other bitter side of chocolate is economics. Because cocoa farmers do not earn a living wage, they turn to child labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 1.56 million children as young as ten are engaged in child labor on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana alone. Traffickers typically promise poor children from neighboring countries money, a bicycle, or an opportunity to go to school if they take the bus to Ivory Coast. But when the bus arrives at a cocoa plantation, the children are forced to work. The work is hazardouschildren spray pesticides and carry 100-pound sacks of cacao. They use machetes to chop down weeds and to cut off and split the cacao pods. The money, bicycle, or school they were promised never materializes. The children find themselves trapped in slave-like conditions and are unable to escape.Yet, despite making pledges over twenty years, Hershey, Mars and Nestl and other large chocolate companies have consistently missed deadlines to uproot child labor from their cocoa supply chains. As a result, a chocolate bar bought in the United States is likely the product of child labor.What can be done?To address chocolates problems, companies need to stop deforestation and pay cocoa farmers a living wage, enough so farmers can hire paid labor.A woman farmer picks cocoa pods on October 18, 2008 in a field near the village of Boko, some 200km ... [+] north of Abidjan, where a group of women have created in 2005 an association of coffee-cocoa producers. Cocoa farming in Ivory Coast, traditionally undertaken by men, has recently become an activity for some women who do not hesitate to defy traditions to engage in this activity with the hope of a better life. AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO (Photo credit should read ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty ImagesAgroforestryOne way to slow deforestation is to plant cacao trees along with other crops such as bananas, avocados, rice, mangos, and citrus in a practice called agroforestry. An analysis of 52 articles comparing cocoa agroforestry systems with cocoa plantations concluded that agroforestry systems stored 2.5 times more carbon. Although cocoa yields in agroforestry systems were 25% lower than in the cocoa monocultures, when the yields of other species like bananas and mangos were added in, total system yields were about ten times higher in agroforestry systems. The profits for farmers were similar in both systems.Cocoa tree with red-violet fruits on the Fazenda Olhos D'gua in Pira do Norte, Bahia, BrazilIlonagotsch, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsUnfortunately, agroforestry systems can not replace tropical forests that have already been cut down. But they can be established on older cocoa plantations where productivity has declined over time. If cocoa agroforestry systems can maintain their productivity, they can help farmers avoid cutting down the remaining forests in Ivory Coast, Ghana, and other cocoa producing countries.Child laborTo halt child labor, chocolate companies first need to trace where their cocoa is coming from. But because a large company sources cocoa from thousands of small farms, often in rural areas with poor roads, it is hard to know the extent of child exploitation. Although all of the 85 companies that together purchase 90% of the worlds cocoa have a policy to monitor, reduce, or eliminate child labor in their supply chains, tracing where and how the cacao beans are sourced remains a challenge. Companies are increasingly using digital tracking systems to monitor the practices of farmers in their supply chains.New business modelsChocolate companies are trying out new business models to address the three bitter sides of chocolate: farmer poverty, child labor, and deforestation. One such company, Tonys Chocolonely, believes that to truly make the cocoa industry more sustainable, all cocoa sourcing enterprises, including the largest, must cooperate to create traceable and sustainable supply chains. It processes its cocoa at one of the worlds largest cocoa processors, Barry Callebaut, to prove traceability can be done at scale, and invites other cocoa sourcing companies to become Mission Allies in addressing labor and deforestation issues. Underlying this approach is Tonys Open Chain, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tony's Chocolonely, which operates on a cost-sharing model. Mission Allies pay a fixed price per metric ton of beans to cover the cost of sustainably sourcing chocolate. To ensure that its sustainability goals are met, Tonys works directly with farmer cooperatives to achieve a 100% traceable supply chain.According to Tonys Open Chain 2023-2024 annual report, it pays 44% above the farmgate price for cacao in Ivory Coast and 18% above the farmgate price in Ghana. Yet, Tonys recognizes it still has a long way to go as only 19.1% of farmers who supply its three largest cacao farmer cooperatives earned at or above a living income. Further Tonys was called out in a 2022 UK Sunday Times article for having 1700 child laborers in its supply chain. By ramping up its traceability system, as of 2024, the prevalence of child labor at Tonys long-term partner cooperatives declined to 3.9%. Over 99% of Tonys suppliers are deforestation-free and Tonys works with farmers to plant shade trees and implement other agroforestry practices.As Tonys Chocolonely executive Paul Schoenmakers puts it:Nobody needs chocolate. Its a gift to yourself or someone else. We think its absolute madness that for a gift that no one really needs, so many people suffer.I talked with Tim McCollum, CEO of the small chocolate producer Beyond Good, which sources its cocoa and manufactures its chocolate in Madagascar. Referring to the problem of farmers not being paid a living wage, McCollum says: The chocolate industry is not sustainable because the business model is broken. Until the fundamental business model is challenged, nothing will change."McCollum explains that in the predominant business model, farmers in the Global South grow the cocoa, and companies in the Global North make the chocolate. To get cocoa from the Global South to the Global North requires middlemen, which makes it impossible to solve the problem of farmer livelihoods.In Beyond Goods bar to bean business model, locals produce their own value-added product (chocolate bars), which according to McCollum, results in Beyond Goods Malagasy farmers making 5-6 times what cocoa farmers make in West Africa. Beyond Goods farmers also practice agroforestry, in which cacao trees are interspersed with 85 species of flora and fauna, including five species of endangered lemurs.MADAGASCAR - 2012/09/12: Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi), or white sifaka feeding in tree ... [+] at Berenty Reserve in southern Madagascar. (Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)LightRocket via Getty ImagesWhat are governments, NGOs, and citizens doing to address chocolates bitter side?The Cocoa & Forests Initiative is a partnership between the UN Climate Change Conference, the governments of Ghana and Ivory Coast, and 35 chocolate companies that together purchase 85% of the worlds cocoa. Launched in 2017 to address deforestation, sustainable production, and farmers livelihoods, the initiative deploys GIS and blockchain to promote transparency in the cocoa supply chain. They trace cocoa beans from plot of land to port of shipment and thus identify farms that are cutting down pristine forest or exploiting child labor.The European Commissions Sustainable Cocoa Initiative seeks a cocoa export price of $2600 per metric tonne, of which 70% would go to farmers, and is expanding monitoring of child labor and deforestation. Related efforts include the EUs Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which requires large companies to conduct human rights and environmental audits in their supply chains, and the Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products, which prohibits placing on the EU market products associated with deforestation. The U.S. is lagging behind the EU, with bills to promote purchase of deforestation-free cocoa, palm oil, and other products failing in Congress and in several states.In addition to calling on Congress and state legislators to take up deforestation legislation, the consumer can purchase from companies that score highly on the Chocolate Scorecard. The Scorecard ranks large companies on supply chain traceability and transparency, living income, child labor, agroforestry, pesticides, and deforestation and climate. You can also check out this list of smaller, ethical chocolate companies dedicated to eradicating the worst forms of child labor including slavery.**********************************************************************************This Valentines Day, consider buying from ethical chocolate companies, even if it means paying a little more for fair labor and more climate-friendly farming. Your valentine deserves the best!
