Increases to Fair Trade Minimum Price and Premium aim to address extreme poverty and its consequences in cocoa-producing communities
Press Release
OAKLAND, Calif., June 11, 2019 /3BL Media/ – Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of fair trade products in North America, announced today that it will increase its minimum price and premium for cocoa by 20 percent as of October 1, 2019 to move farmers closer to a living income and reduce the extreme poverty and child labor that is prevalent in West Africa’s cocoa fields.
The world needs forests. They are vital to maintain biodiversity and to help combat climate change.
At the same time, forests have suffered since the invention of the plough, as people have cut them down to plant crops for food and cash. The bulldozer just made things worse.
Over 70% of the world’s cocoa comes from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and deforestation has wreaked havoc. Only 17% of the original forest remains in Côte d’Ivoire, while only fragments of the once magnificent Guinean forest can still be found.
A simple honeybee: It provides you with deliciously sweet honey for your tea. It helps pollinate the crops of fruits and vegetables that end up on your family’s dinner plate – even the coffee beans for your morning drink. That same honeybee can also help small family farmers in places like the dense forests of Mexico thrive.
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A simple honeybee: It provides you with deliciously sweet honey for your tea. It helps pollinate the crops of fruits and vegetables that end up on your family’s dinner plate – even the coffee beans for your morning drink. That same honeybee can also help small family farmers in places like the dense forests of Mexico thrive.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth story in a series focusing on our commitment to sustainably source the top ten priority ingredients used in General Mills products.
Working with smallholders in the region of the Valleys of the Rivers Apurimac, Ene and Montaro (VRAEM) in Peru is a challenging task. The region produces approximately 70% of Peru’s illicit coca and is home to the last remnants of the Shining Path, an armed group that has fought a war against the state between the 1980s and early 2000s.
Commitment will accelerate preservation and rehabilitation of forests in Cote d'Ivoire & Ghana
Press Release
MINNEAPOLIS, November 16, 2017 /3BL Media/ - General Mills joins leading companies in an agreement to end deforestation, protect national parks from illegal cocoa production and develop alternative livelihoods for affected smallholder farmers in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. The two countries produce nearly two-thirds of the world’s annual supply of cocoa. The far-reaching joint Frameworks for Action, led by the World Cocoa Foundation, was announced today at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) in Bonn, Germany.
The cocoa industry has a dirty secret. Child labor is way too common in West Africa. Over 70 percent of the global cocoa supply comes from two West African countries: the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Farmers supplying companies with the chocolate they use in their products receive little for the cocoa. That means they are unable to hire laborers to harvest the crop, and child labor is widely used as a result. A Tulane University report found that in 2013 and 2014, 2.26 million children in Ghana and the Ivory Coast worked in cocoa production.
CARE, with support from General Mills and other partners, is helping West African communities become food secure through the promotion of food crop farming and nutrition in 30 cocoa-growing communities: 20 in Ghana and 10 in neighboring Cote d’Ivoire.
The work is part of a broader multi-year program aimed at helping smallholder farmers who grow cocoa to increase their livelihoods and to improve the well-being of those in their households and communities.
Fair Trade USA and the Natural Marketing Institute reveal new data on consumer attitudes toward Fair Trade; strong support from Millennials and mainstream grocery
Press Release
OAKLAND, Calif., February 25, 2016 /3BL Media/ – Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in North America, and the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), an international consulting and research firm specializing in health and sustainability, today released new data indicating that fifty-nine percent of consumers now recognize the Fair Trade Certified™ label.
