Sweet Freedom only buys Fairtrade cocoa, yes it adds a premium to the price that we pay for our cocoa, but this is why we feel it’s so vital…
Emilia Debrah (pictured) is a Fairtrade cocoa farmer in Ghana. She has a real flair for farming but her income from cocoa before 2018 was so low that she fell into debt and struggled badly for a while. What turned her finances around, she says, is the support she got from the Fairtrade co-op she belongs to and training to help her farm her four hectares of land more productively.
She’s now almost self-sufficient thanks to her newly created ‘micro-forest’ and can sell the vegetables she intercrops with cocoa locally. The savings she’s made on pesticides help protect Emilia, and her six grandchildren she cares for, against rising living costs.
There is an urgent threat to the future of cocoa and the livelihoods of the people who grow it, they face some of the worst effects of the climate crisis. Without Fairtrade support for fairer prices today, farmers will find it even harder to tackle the climate and economic challenges of the future.
Smallholder cocoa farmers like Emilia simply can’t foot the bill for adapting to economic and climate change impacts on their current incomes.
A fair income for farmers and workers is vital now, not only so they can keep farming those heavenly beans that we all love so much, but so they can afford to invest in making changes to adapt to the worsening climate and economic crises. It’s simply not fair to expect them to do both without our support.
By choosing Fairtrade with us now, we’re all taking a stand with farmers and workers (the majority of whom are women) for fairer incomes, so together we can help invest in the future of the incredibly hardworking people that produce our cocoa.
PS… We’re gradually adding the Fairtrade logo to the labels on our Sweet Freedom chocolate products now, and you’ll start to see them on our packs soon. We have been asked if no logo means no Fairtrade – no, ALL the cocoa we buy is Fairtrade, it’s just that we won’t be throwing away old labels as that’s not very planet friendly, or cost conscious!