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Being a cocoa farmer isn’t as sweet as it sounds. There is no chocolate without cocoa, and although millions of chocolate bars are sold every day, cocoa farmers are some of the poorest people in the world and on average earn less than 50p per day.Think about something you spent 50p on recently. A chocolate bar, a comic or a fizzy drink? In Ghana, 50p goes much further than it does in the UK because farmers will often grow their own food and there is less demand for consumer goods. Despite that, the average farming family finds it really hard to pay for vital things like medicines, clothes, and work tools.

Most cocoa farmersThere are over 14 million cocoa farmers worldwide.are not in a strong position to demand a higher price for their cocoa because they depend on selling their cocoa beans to pay for the essential things in life. Find out more about the difference Fairtrade makes to cocoa farmers here.

Life is unpredictable for cocoa farmers who sell their cocoa to non-Fairtrade companies. Farmers don’t know how much they are going to get paid because the price for cocoa goes up and downThe world market price of cocoa changes every day. It is affected by loads of things: the buying power of big chocolate companies, a sophisticated global internet trading business called the ‘Futures Industry’ and even the weather! When the weather is good for producing cocoa, the price of cocoa will fall because there is so much of it being produced! each harvest, and the money they receive often falls below what it costs the farmer to grow the cocoa. If you get pocket money, imagine if the amount changed each week, it would mean you couldn’t plan for what you needed to buy.

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