The top two cocoa growers are stepping up efforts to pressure the global chocolate industry into paying more to help support poor farmers.
For the past few years, Ivory Coast and Ghana have charged $400-a-ton surcharge for cocoa in a bid to gain greater control of the market and boost livelihoods of their farmers, many of whom live below the poverty line. The so-called Living Income Differential (Lid) came on top of a separate quality premium for beans from the two countries that has long been implemented.
The problem is that it hasn’t really worked.
The LID came in just