Posted on 07/31/2014 3:21:16 PM PDT by beaversmom
Chocolate. Whatever your preferred form or flavor is, the love of it is something that feels universal, shared between us. We come together over dinner for it, celebrate birthdays and holidays with it. The industry that produces chocolate crisscrosses the entire world.
But for the cocoa bean farmers from M'batto, Ivory Coast, seen in the video above, that connection didn't come full circle until Selay Marius Kouassi, guest correspondent for Metropolis TV, visited and offered them a taste of their first chocolate bar.
Ivory Coast, a small country on the west coast of Africa, is the world's leading producer of cocoa beans, the primary ingredient in chocolate. As a result, many of the farmers in the video have been working with the crop -- surrounded by it, really -- for decades.
But, unbelievably enough, they've never had a taste of the finished product.
As CNN.com explains, cocoa bean farmers are at the bottom of a global supply chain that stands "firmly against [them]." Because the traders, processors, exporters and manufacturers all sit above farmers on that chain and demand a profit margin, farmers have little bargaining power and receive the bare minimum for their product.
N'Da Alphonse, the first farmer to take a bite, says that he doesn't even know what the cocoa beans he's working hard to harvest and dry are used for. For all his hard work producing the beans, he only makes seven euros a day. In M'batto, a bar of chocolate costs two euros.
Kouassi offers him a bar to eat, and he immediately lights up. "I did not know that cocoa was so yummy," he says. "Delicious."
He takes another bar to his friends. They're excited, but suspicious. "Are you really 100 percent sure that this is made from cocoa beans?" one man asks.
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
Chocolate - and sugar = more proof of God’s existence, and that He likes to see us happy!
LOL, Expect the price of cocoa beans to go up.
Yep, cocoa by itself is pretty bitter. Surprise!
Amazing, this is an incredible reminder of what parts of the world are still like (and why so unchangeable).
God bless ‘em, I wish they could have a lifetime supply of chocolate.
But notice how the video attempts to instill guilt in bad white Westerners for being able to afford it.
Willie’s Chocolate Revolution ‘Episode 1’ (1/4)
Also known as Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory. In the 3 part documentary, (split into 4 parts each), Willie tries to market ‘real’ chocolate onto the market - along the way he faces difficulty such as the source for his cocoa beans, and expensive machinery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGO1oEwxYWA&list=PLevYgPn_o8P3zgDMYtEKZXNWh17DnEXnc
His chocolate website. (I’ve tried it and it’s pretty decent chocolate.)
http://williescacao.com/index.php?rid=home
African Man after eating chocolate for the first time:
“This is why white people are so healthy.” :)
“But notice how the video attempts to instill guilt in bad white Westerners for being able to afford it.”
If the translation is true, I don’t see it as trying to “instill guilt”, rather a fact of life for these west coast Africans. In their world, the whites “have” and they have not.
Considering it comes from a Huffington Post piece, what else would you expect?
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