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Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland
- williesleg 6y agoNo more swiss piss? Thanks china!
- sadmann1 6y agoHow will Switzerland counter this change of events
- WestOaklandfan 6y agoHow will Ghana counter the loss of a high quality cocoa buyer ?
- fogihujy 6y agoThe first response will probably be for the chocolate producers to try to source the raw materials from other sources. This may or may not result in production ramping up elsewhere, or even new producers appearing as increased prices could make production financially viable in places it previously wasn't. Depending on how the markets react, prices may go up, and many of the really cheap brands could disappear from the shelves, or just have their fat/sugar contents increased. There's also a non-zero chance that new African brands will grab a part of the low-end of the market, with protectionist measures implemented to respond to them.
- eloisant 6y agoConsidering Switzerland is less than 9 millions people, their total consumption is a drop in the ocean of the global market so I'm don't think protectionist measures would change much. And I don't see why the big markets (EU, US) would want to protect Swiss companies.
- fogihujy 6y agoThe big markets won't care about Swiss chocolate. It's far more likely that Swiss chocolate producers will simply focus on the high-end market and leave it at that. Now, if other African countries tried doing this to the EU and re. other raw materials on the other hand...
- 300africans 6y agoIt will eventually happen. In my opinion, in the medium term, from China pressure and them outcompeting Europe in Africa. Chinese are having more boots on the ground all across Africa compared to 20 years ago and one of their main focus is resource extraction. I don't think Europe will be able to dictate to the Chinese in 5 - 10 years in how to conduct their business there. Not that they can do that now either. One of the things to watch your for is the loss of control of west and central african currencies by the French
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoCO2 tariffs: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-an-eu-carbon-border-tax-could-jolt-world-trade https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-an-eu-carbon-borde... Ghana's electricity supply is 51% fossil fuel, whereas Switzerland is 2.5%. But its a lot easier to build solar plants in Accra than in Bern... I think that Europe is at a fundamental disadvantage over the medium/long-term, due to the burden of its welfare states. Its surprising to see that taxes over basically all categories are lower in Ghana than in Europe (except corporate taxes). The minimum monthly aged pension is €6.60 in Ghana, vs €1,080 in Switzerland. Life expectancy is 20 years longer in Switzerland than Ghana, but the retirement age is only 4 years later. The end effect of these extremely early and generous pensions is that economies become stratified, to ensure that these pension payments are maintained, and taxes are heaped on individuals to pay for it. Europe needs a widespread increase of the aged pension age to 70, cease all migration from regions with high usage of welfare state service, and begin a large, multi-generational modular nuclear power plant building plan.
- kwere 6y agomaybe we need a individual capitalization pension plan
- ISL 6y agoMy experience with corruption in Ghana suggests that the Swiss have some other key advantages. It is impossible to imagine a swiss policeman stopping every third car on the country's main highway and asking, "Where's my Christmas?" That said, the potential for Ghanaians to thrive is astounding. Incremental improvements will yield incremental gains. It is a tropical paradise emerging from the weight of poverty. Also, the mangoes are hands-down the finest I have ever tasted.
- csomar 6y agoI think Switzerland is doing, overall, fine. France is the biggest abuser. They have a large bloated-welfare system that encourages people not to work; and they have a combination of impossibly high taxes and bureaucracy. If you look at this list, you'll know something is horribly wrong with these economies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven... The ones at the top are all European except for Cuba...
- staticelf 6y agoGood for them I guess or is it? I don't understand how you cannot have prosparity from selling raw materials? If you think you're not being paid enough, increase the price along with creating your own products. It seems weird to me to not let foreign countries buy your raw materials just because you want to produce more stuff yourself. It's not like I will start buying chocolate made in ghana because they don't want to sell their cocoa anymore. I will still buy from the brands I like and are used to most of the times, which is a local brand.
- sokoloff 6y agoI feel like for every measure of progress this might give Ghana, it will give other exporters of cocoa beans 10x as much advantage, at least in the short-term.
- austincheney 6y ago> If you think you're not being paid enough, increase the price along with creating your own products. Who makes that decision? Cocoa slavery is a thing because the economics of raw material pricing is complicated by many factors but the demand is very simple and very high.
- sokoloff 6y agoThe (effective) demand for beans produced in Ghana just went way down with this policy enactment though, right?
- austincheney 6y agoI doubt it. If anything it will restrict market availability which will only increase demand, but the best way to know is watch the price for beans.
- sokoloff 6y agoI agree that watching the market is the best way to judge the balance. I'd expect the price for beans as-delivered to Switzerland is likely to go up. The price for beans as-offered in Ghana is likely to go down. The latter matters more to Ghana cocoa farmers.
- lmm 6y agoFeels like a pretty confused article, diving back and forth between cocoa and coronavirus vaccines even while saying they're unrelated. Building up local industry sounds like a good approach for the long term (though, contra the article, inevitably at a short term cost); the simplistic free trade arguments discount the value of developing industry within the country. A ban is a very blunt instrument though; a tariff (perhaps gradually increasing over time) seems like a better approach that would help the country gradually transition while avoiding shocks.
- Laforet 6y agoUntil someone shows me actual evidence of a ban being applied or at least some concrete plan with penalities for violations, what I have just read are nothing more than rhetoric and posturing. Banning the export of a commodity is very hard. It works when the supply could be drastically reduced in the short term (1973 Arab oil embargo), or when the product has already failed in the market and they need government intervention to save face (recent Russian ban on raw timber export). In any other case, the goods will always find a way through the controls to meet the demand.
- jeromegv 6y agoThat was indeed a very confusing article to read, I couldn't finish it.
- Shivetya 6y agoExplain LID [0] which is effectively a tax applied to every ton of cocoa sold of which most is paid to the farmers. However I think Ghana is in the wrong here because extorting other nations to give them anything free of charge by withholding trade goods will simply means that the trade goods will eventually be sourced elsewhere. Regardless what you think about rich vs poor, medicine vs goods, and such, IP is property and using a world wide organization to deprive another of their rights is never a good idea. (no whataboutism please). Yes it is medicine, yes it is important, but that does not mean it has to be free. It should be something that can be negotiated but going nuclear in trade never benefits anyone and usually affects the poorest of world the most. My suggestion, just up the LID [0]https://www.uncommoncacao.com/blog/2020/10/20/the-lid-in-ghana-and-cote-divoire https://www.uncommoncacao.com/blog/2020/10/20/the-lid-in-gha...
- bildung 6y ago> to deprive another of their rights is never a good idea. (no whataboutism please). What about access to cocoa not being a right?
- meepmorp 6y agothey said no whataboutism, fam
- stan_rogers 6y agoI can't tell whether or not your response was meant to be in jest, but "whataboutism" is a variety of tu quoque involving a third party.
- meepmorp 6y agoWhat about my post makes you think I don’t know that?
- djohnston 6y agoI think OP is talking about access to the COVID vaccines. As much a human right as access to cocoa really.
- tziki 6y agoI wish them success, but my prediction is that in a few years they'll have no successful products and the world's chocolate makers have found new suppliers. You can't just make a decision to create successful products.
- vagrantJin 6y agoInter African free trade is increasing sharply, so their primary market would likely be other African countries. Maybe that was their trumo card if worst comes to worst.
- jelling 6y agoSame. I am concerned they are overlooking how much marketing mind-share Switzerland has globally for chocolate. Ghana could get there but it will not happen overnight, more like a generation. Distribution will also take time. Give that cocoa is their number 3 export - and I suspect most of that is in raw form - I really hope this doesn’t backfire. They need foreign currency. A wiser path might be to build up global chocolate brands in parallel to raw exporting, sort of like we’re seeing China move up the value chain from value-added manufacturing to consumer brands.
- sct202 6y agoThey can process the beans and no one will notice. There are a lot of cocoa processors who produce bulk chocolate for other brands who melt that down to form their own products. Companies like Barry Callebaut or Valrhona primarily supply other companies with chocolate.
- bogomipz 6y agoSure but processing cocoa into chocolate at the scale quality of Callebaut and Valrhona is a massive undertaking of both production and skill. Callebaut and Valrhona produce chocolate for high end consumers such as pastry chefs in high end restaurants or artisanal bakeries. I'm not saying Ghana can't get there but it's going to a long time. Certainly long enough that it would be very much noticed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- htatche 6y agoIs this rather a ban on Ghana suppliers themselves in order to trigger a shift in the country's manufacturing so they're forced to step up their processing and break away from just sending the crops at whatever price the market sets?
- kleiba 6y agoI guess they will have to sell the beans to some other state then, from whom Switzerland will then buy it?
- m12k 6y agoI'm reading the book The Divide at the moment. It makes the argument that it takes time and the right conditions to build up an industry - infrastructure needs to be built, education and a skilled labor pool with the necessary know-how as well. To begin with, a fledgling industry in a developing country cannot compete with those of already industrialized countries - these are already so effective that they can undercut newcomers before they have time to become competitive. So the book argues that when developing countries are pressured into free trade agreements (for example by making aid dependent on this), these countries are also forced into a position where they get stuck at the low end of the production value chain, selling raw materials, while buying processed goods from others (often the same role they were forcibly assigned when they were colonies). So much like we allow children time to learn in school before we expect them to compete in the job market, we should allow developing countries to employ protectionistic policies like tariffs, in order to protect and build up their fledgling industries nationally, before fully entering the world market in a couple decades when they are ready.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago>"we should allow developing countries" Not to pick on you, but I often hear this frasing in the 'first world' and surely you dont 'allow' or 'disallow' internal policies to an sovereign nation? It sounds like a Freudianslip or something, the reality is that its easy to bully or bribe officials in developing nations.
- jariel 6y agoWTO has rules, as do nations with agreements in place. 'Allow' implies some degree of forgiveness or allowance of entity on the other side of the table. In this case, Ghana may probably face trade sanction/scrutiny for their protectionism. It will have to play out in terms of other agreements.
- luxuryballs 6y agocollusion for thee but not for me
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- dalbasal 6y agoWait... Swiss diplomats still wear jack sparrow hats?!
- dgellow 6y agoNo. The people you can see in the first picture aren't the diplomats themselves, it's just part of the tradition when welcoming country leaders. Watch the video, you will see that our current president has completely normal clothes.
- andimm 6y agoThey are called Bundesweibel, took me a while to find them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huissier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huissier https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weibel_(Amtsdiener) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weibel_(Amtsdiener)
- dgellow 6y agoEt pour les romands: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huissier_(Suisse) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huissier_(Suisse) :)
- bsanr2 6y agoThis is similar to the situation with Global South coffee exports, wherein actual growers only receive a fraction of the revenue from consumer sales (despite the relatively cheap and easy value-add of roasting or conversion into instant coffee) because of logistical concerns, and because Europeans and American just plain do not buy African roast coffee when it appears on their shelves. If these countries were to decide to restrict exports, a billion-dollar market would collapse.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI think people buying fairtrade are under impression they are solving the issue, whereas in reality it doesnt do much
- jariel 6y agoCoffee is a commodity. Marketers will re-brand their roasts pretty quickly and convince us all that 'it's better'. Coco is special in that production is limited.
- brodock 6y agoGood coffee is not abundant. Not the crap you will find in local supermarket, that will almost always taste the same. It's like cheap wine.
- unwind 6y agoThis is a pretty minor point, but any proper coffee geek will tell you that the shelf life of roasted coffee is pretty bad. Thus it makes sense to roast closer to the time when the coffee is made available for sale; shipping from African countries up to Europe, would increase the "latency" a great deal. I'm sure modern packaging gives a decent shelf life, and TBH I don't worry much about the use-before label on coffee around here, but that's generally because it doesn't last long on the shelf anyway. :)
- fogihujy 6y agoNot to mention that many prefer one specific blend. If you want me to buy another brand/blend then you first have to convince me that the new one is at least as delicious as the previous one.
- m000 6y agoI really hope Ivory Coast will join Ghana on this, as they did for the LID bonus case. Together they account for over 2/3 of cocoa production. So, they can pretty much reshape the cocoa/chocolate market and break out of colonialistic trade agreements for the benefit of their people.
- barry-cotter 6y agoIf the Swiss can buy from 1/3 of global producers that’s still plenty to satisfy the demand. And it’s not like the world is short of areas where cocoa would grow. It's not so long since Vietnam went from not growing coffee to being one of the world’s largest producers in under 20 years. I bet they could do it with cocoa too.
- jeromegv 6y agoThere's actually a worldwide shortage of cocoa, it's apparently not that simple.
- jjcon 6y agoDue to COVID yes, but there are shortages of everything right now - cocoa isn’t unique in any way in that regard
- BoorishBears 6y ago... except it's actually relevant to the thread's point about exercising greater control over cocoa
- jjcon 6y agoThe above was in a response saying they could take 20 years to invest in cocoa elsewhere - the shortage is very temporary in comparison
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- runawaybottle 6y agoJust flexing that geopolitical hot take: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-22/ghana-seeks-1-5-billion-in-chinese-loans-to-boost-cocoa-sector https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-22/ghana-see... China’s influence over Africa to secure it’s own cocoa production? Article from 2017: https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKL8N1K35R1 https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKL8N1K35R1 So looks like China paid up this year and got exclusives, and not Switzerland. What’s the game, I must know. Ghana is Lord Baelish?
- dgellow 6y agoI'm not sure I follow the argument. Surely Ghana could sell some cocoa to Switzerland, while at the same time building their own chocolate brands. Maybe reduce your export, but keep a strong influx of money and at the same time invest in your own line of products.
- eloisant 6y agoEasier for them to compete internationally as Nestle, Lindt, etc. will have to either reduce their production or find other (possibly more expensive) cocoa sources. Also it prevents from having internal competition between exportation and internal refining, as exportation is easy "right now" money while refining will take time and investments.
- prepend 6y agoI think it’s good to see raw producers start working up market to make their own chocolate. I think a Ghanaian chocolate brand actually owned by Ghanaians and made for export would market very well. It’s interesting to me how much tasty and interesting stuff in Africa has not been marketed internationally and there’s lots of room for them to grow and develop. For example, fonio [0], is a grain native to west Africa that I’ve never seen in the US but was eaten every day when I was there, as common as rice. It’s gluten-free and could be the next quinoa and a great opportunity to develop a new brand and export finished products rather than just commodities. One of the big opportunities of all this digitization, I think, is that it’s now easier for remote locations to get more value out of their commodities than just exporting raw and having someone else add most of the value. I’m surprised the Swiss aren’t trying to do more joint ventures to develop chocolate making capabilities in Ghana.
- hanche 6y agoI satisfy my chocolate cravings with chocolate from fairafric now. Chocolate produced all the way from the tree to packaged chocolate bars in Ghana. They ran a couple kickstarter projects to get going. It's excellent chocolate too! At least the dark variants, which are the only ones I care about. https://fairafric.com/en/home/ https://fairafric.com/en/home/
- kzrdude 6y agoVery cool. Just note (since it's on topic here) that their team is mostly German, not from Ghana https://fairafric.com/team/ https://fairafric.com/team/
- hanche 6y agoTrue. However, they seem to be working hard – and with some success, I believe – at transferring ownership and responsibility to their partners in Ghana.
- auiya 6y agoThere's a smoked chili pepper which I believe is native to the area that is labeled as "ghana pepper" for export, and is hard to find elsewhere. It is _incredible_.
- tyingq 6y ago"With Ghana’s move towards processing its own cocoa, the world, and not just Switzerland, will experience a massive shortage since Ghana is responsible for about 45% of the world’s cocoa." That seems like bigger news than the headline.
- arcticfox 6y agoIt's also a massive assumption... first of all that Ghana won't be able to process & export chocolate in significant quantities, and second of all that other nations that are paying the LID won't be able to pick up the Swiss slack. Surely the cocoa won't just be burned, someone will find a way to process it.
- SamBam 6y agoIf Ghana is able to process its own cocoa at the same rate as the Swiss, or at least accelerate to such productions soon, then the world won't see a massive shortage of chocolate, just of raw cocoa. It seems reasonable to me. My understanding is that the ones adding the value, by turning the raw material into chocolate, are the ones making the majority of the profits.
- Shadonototro 6y agothey'll move production elsewhere, problem solved why people do not think nowadays?
- tyingq 6y agoI'm no expert, but there are articles from many different sources saying that the transition will result in a crisis, and will take a long time to resolve.
- Shadonototro 6y agoi doubt it, they anticipated that many years ago, they only import 1/3 from ghana, easy to replace source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20170414-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E...
- aritmo 6y agoHere says[0] that Ghana and China are about to sign a $2b deal to build schools, roads, hospitals and other infrastructure. In exchange of cocoa products. Did this work out for Ghana? There are no newer posts since 2018 on this. [0]: https://archive.is/CPFhC https://archive.is/CPFhC
- Aachen 6y agoIf it's known which roads or area, we could check with satellite imagery. As an OpenStreetMap contributor, I'd be happy to check the current state against what's mapped for a given region.
- fmajid 6y agoDivine Chocolate is owned by Ghanaian cacao farmer: https://www.divinechocolate.com/products https://www.divinechocolate.com/products A much better model than the Fairtrade scam by which white-savior consultants jet off to poor countries to lecture locals whose backs their fat salaries are extracted off.
- vmilner 6y agoIt's about twice the price of Cadbury's in the UK, but significantly better quality. I often buy it when I see it, and it has fairly good shop distribution now.
- fmajid 6y agoAlso Whole Foods in the US.
- mpol 6y agoHow i fairtrade a scam? Please be aware that the market of cocoa is not an easy one and not very transparent. The Dutch TV maker Teun van der Keuken was devastated by what he saw in Ivory Coast with a lot of child slavery going on. He started his own slavefree brand Tony Chocolonely, but even they have to admit they can not guarantee it is slavefree made, they can only strive for that. By the way, the people from Nestle just shrugged over the issue of child slavery. I am very happy to see good policy being applied in Africa, they need to do this more often and strongly. Europe and the US, governments and companies, have been pulling their strings far too long. I hope China can give them a sense of how they can fend better for themself.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoI didn't realize Tony Chocolonely was intended to be a slave free brand, I had bought it in Europe thinking it had a hilarious name and large size - the background of traditional brands sold in the US sounds horrific if he decided to make his own company based on what he saw, which haven't even penetrated our domestic market.
- mxcrossb 6y agoThe nerve of that website to beg for donations while being plastered with advertisements
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoI know HN prefers not to discuss site misbehavior, but since there is already is a thread... This site had it all. I think I had something like 4 or 5 overlaying popups/infocards, plus ads. When I tried to scroll it redirected me to the next page, and then it hijacked the back button on top of that. Revisited to count the garbage: Donation beg, cookies, sticky ad on the bottom, "Add to home screen", "install our app", notification bell button. White space in the content area, with an ad underneath. No content visible at all.
- aaron695 6y ago> Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland This is not true. He only said they are going to try and process some cocoa in Ghana. "we intend to process more and more of our cocoa in our country" https://youtu.be/gs_dD7qKfX8?t=317 https://youtu.be/gs_dD7qKfX8?t=317 It'll take decades and they will grow more to supply both markets, if their market is successful. What's with the hysterical headlines - "Awkward moment when President of Ghana says they intend to process cacao", "Ghana will no longer sell cocoa to Switzerland", "Ghana President shuts down Swiss President", "Ghana President Publicly Denied Cocoa Export to Switzerland." I thought maybe short sellers, but I can't see a link. Is it just some addictive meme, I guess the random covid bits are like an attack vector or something?
- sschueller 6y agoYes, this is garbage news. I dont see anything in the top Swiss papers.
- acdha 6y agoWe recently enjoyed some chocolates made in Ghana from a company founded by a Ghanaian-born American immigrant: https://us.midunuchocolates.com/ https://us.midunuchocolates.com/
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoSeems like a good decision. Would be good for other African countries to do similarly, but they are largely hindered by corrupt governments whose officials benefit from exporting the raw materials.
- jkaljundi 6y agoNetflix series Rotten has a good episode on cocoa lifecycle and the problems involved: https://www.netflix.com/ee/title/80146284 https://www.netflix.com/ee/title/80146284
- JulianMorrison 6y agoI wonder what Ghanaian chocolate will be like? I will be happy to buy it and try.
- 1MachineElf 6y agoHaving worked in Whole Foods and been surrounded by family who prefer organic, free/fair type foods, I must say I do understand there is a market for the chocolates we usually see marketed as non-European. There's an emphasis on dark chocolate, "artisanal blends" with spices, etc. The kind of chocolate people pay extra for because they think it's special, then don't touch because they paid extra for and want to preserve it, only for it to expire in the pantry. Let me be honest. I prefer European-style chocolate. Milk chocolate. White chocolate. They're much richer, and I hope there will continue to be a great supply of this type of chocolate. Maybe that Swiss brand recognition has more to do with the fact that it actually tastes really good versus what's being attributed to hand-wavy concepts about colonialism and power structures.
- rory 6y agoHey I actually like that dark, spiced chocolate! I'm also skeptical it's any more expensive than the Swiss chocolate sold in gaudy mall stores like Lindt and Teuscher. There's obviously a market for these sort of "non-European-style" chocolates, which, as you said, are marketed specifically as being associated with countries like Ghana. In NE Asia there's actually a chocolate bar just called Ghana (made in Japan..)! So why shouldn't Ghana try to capture more of the value of that market? I'm sure Swiss chocolate makers can source their cocoa elsewhere, and milk chocolate needs far less actual cocoa anyway.
- reducesuffering 6y ago> "I prefer European-style chocolate. Milk chocolate. White chocolate. They're much richer" And also much unhealthier. They contain copious amounts of added, refined sugar. Cocoa can be healthy given it's nutrient profile, but only outweighs the damage added sugar causes if the chocolate is >90% cacao.
- 1MachineElf 6y agoYou make a very fair point about the sugar content, and I should give it weight because I am predisposed to diabetes due to genetic factors, however, have you considered the negative effects of the higher stimulant content in "dark" chocolate? I feel that a sugar addiction is easier to manage than an addiction to cocoa's theobromine, caffiene, phenylethylamine, and pheobromine. Even if I was in ketosis, I would avoid cocoa nibs just because the stimulant effects seem more disruptive than they're worth.
- refraincomment 6y agoHopefully they also stop exporting unsolicited people.
- someonehere 6y agoI read their reasoning why they’re stopping, but my gut tells me China is behind this. They’re actively tapping Africa for natural resources and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some dealings behind closed doors to hand over cacao to China.
- rhplus 6y agoPlaybook: 1) Ghana needs capital to build cacao processing plants 2) Foreign investors loans capital and plant is built with skilled foreign labor 3) Once running, plants are staffed by unskilled local labor 4) Ghana has an unrelated financial crisis and defaults on loans 5) Foreign investors take ownership of cacao processing plants through liens 6) Foreign investors threaten to close plants unless they get a free-trade zone 7) Cacao is now processed in Ghana with cheap labor and no export duties
- sgt 6y agoThis is terrible. How did it get that far, so quickly?
- amelius 6y agoIn other news, Switzerland begins militarization process https://infobrics.org/post/31420 https://infobrics.org/post/31420
- solidsnack9000 6y agoIn the long run, it wouldn't make sense for so much finished chocolate to be from places like France and Switzerland, where cocoa doesn't grow. There is a parallel with tea. At one time, people thought in terms of "English tea" or "French tea". In recent decades, western people are much more acquainted with Japanese and Chinese tea directly. It is no coincidence that this stuff is fresher, more varied, more affordable...
- standardUser 6y agoIt's called industrial policy and it's pretty much the only way nations can make the leap from developing to developed. The thing is, industrial policy and mostly-free trade can and do work really well together, but for about a generation the "Washington Consensus" of free trade absolutists didn't allow it. Those countries that did so anyway, like China, were able to thrive, while smaller nations got stuck as resource exporters.
- marcodiego 6y agoCocoa as most raw food are just like commodities with little value added. Developing countries should make efforts to sell products with grater value added if they plan to become less dependent on richer nations.
- igammarays 6y agoI wonder if we would go to war over chocolate, like we would over other brown sticky stuff. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a coup in Ghana soon, not least because a lot of rich exporters will be angry.
- ggm 6y agoIf the raw cocoa had attracted a price closer to the final products value, this wouldn't have happened. Sure, the value add is significant and so this is not just "chocolate is the value inherent in the beans" but really? This is happening because chocolate consumable production underpays the farmers. This response is a good thing. I hope they succeed, its as steep hill to climb making good chocolate from cocoa.
- rossdavidh 6y agoWhile I realize it's not precisely the same, this reminds me of Qatar's decision a while back to stop just exporting oil, and instead start doing the refining, etc. themselves. Basically working their way up the production chain. Of course, just because it worked for Qatar doesn't guarantee it will work for Ghana, but the strategy makes sense. The main risk will be if their domestic chocolate producers aren't able to pay enough to Ghana's cocoa farmers, and instead of creating a chocolate industry they decimate their cocoa farming sector. Hopefully they have gotten their ducks at least somewhat in a row before they started this.
- tinus_hn 6y agoHow long is it going to take for artificial cocoa take over anyway?
- woeirua 6y agoGood for Ghana. There is no reason why cocoa cannot be processed into chocolate in Ghana, except that the Swiss have cornered this market for a long time. Ghana should cutout the middle men.
- cryptica 6y agoI have a feeling that Africa is going to experience an economic boom. I'm hearing about a surprising number of interesting, value-adding cryptocurrency projects based in Africa. In the meantime, the developed world is obsessed with economically useless trends like virtual sushis, pancakes and NFTs...
- newobj 6y agoThe Swiss really Miss their Swiss Miss
- zepearl 6y agoI read the article (I'm swiss) but I feel like I'm missing the point. I immediately looked up the first 2 most locally famous companies I could think of ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolat_Frey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolat_Frey + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cailler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cailler which in this case made me read https://cailler.ch/en/about#sustainability https://cailler.ch/en/about#sustainability ) and in both cases they mention "UTZ Certified" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTZ_Certified https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTZ_Certified ): UTZ, formerly called UTZ Certified, is a program and a label for sustainable farming. The UTZ label is featured on more than 10,000 product packages in over 116 countries. In 2014, UTZ was reported to be the largest program for sustainable farming of coffee and cocoa in the world. The UTZ program addresses agricultural practices, social and living conditions, farm management, and the environment. So, from the point of view of sustainability (quality of the product, quality of living of the producers, etc...) the swiss products should be ok, which should be a good thing, right? Therefore, if general sustainability is OK, then the local companies (therefore, indirectly "the government") shouldn't have problems developing/evolving that kind of industry? Or maybe not? I'm writing this because I don't understand why such a drastic measure ("stop selling to Switzerland!") is being adopted. I guess that if Ghana does that then Switzerland will just switch to other producers - it will take some time&effort to ensure the same standards (for the quality of both the product & farming) but it's doable => I miss seeing the advantage here for Ghana, as they won't be able anymore to sell their "higher-priced UTZ-certified product" to Switzerland (my assumption is that what they're selling is UTZ-certified). Am I being naive? Am I overlooking something, maybe simplifying stuff too much?
- underseacables 6y agoIf the US and Switzerland start buying from other countries, those economies will grow while Ghana struggles.
- oliv__ 6y ago"It is quite simple, she says with a tinge of amusment and a sparkle in her eye--" "We need the raw materials" "And you have the raw materials"
- oliv__ 6y agoNext thing you know: "military coup in Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo taken down"
- FpUser 6y agoLong time overdue. If poor countries ever want to get out of the state of being locked into subservience they should acquire ability to move up the chain in production by any means possible.
- nitwit005 6y agoI assume the desire is to stay within WTO rules, and halting trade entirely is allowed? The traditional strategy for this sort of thing is tariffs or forming a producer cartel that limits supply.
- lazylizard 6y agoi see maybe cocoa plantations up the hills of dak lak? chiang rai? in the coming years?