Boom Times For Organic Cocoa In Ivory Coast

Cocoa farmers across Ivory Coast, the world’s biggest producer of the key ingredient for chocolate, are down in the dumps after prices for their commodity have fallen for the second year running.

Not so in M’Brimbo, a village in central Ivory Coast which 11 years ago became a testing ground for organic cocoa farming and today is prospering.

The local farmers’ collective, the Fair Cooperative Society of Bandama (SCEB), sell their high-quality produce at twice the market rate for non-organic cocoa.

“When producers are trained and well-paid, they can make very good cocoa in Ivory Coast,” said Arthur Gautier, an agronomist who works for Ethiquable, a French company that specialises in marketing fair-trade products and buys SCEB’s harvest.

The chocolate made from their cocoa is sold in French supermarkets under the brand “Grand Cru M’Brimbo,” a name that resonates with fine wines — “Grand Cru” means “vintage.”

Cocoa growing was massively promoted by Ivory Coast’s government following independence in 1960, becoming the backbone of the country’s rise as one of West Africa’s leading economies. Today, Ivory Coast produces two million tonnes of cocoa per year, equivalent to more than 40 percent of the world’s market.

But expansion has also come at a grim price for the environment and fuelled a dependency that ratchets up rural poverty whenever prices slump.

Around 90 percent of Ivory Coast’s forests have been destroyed, stripping away habitat for elephants and other species, and in some places herbicides and pesticides have lastingly tainted the soil.

Using techniques pioneered in Latin America, SCEB farmers weed their fields manually and have developed specific methods to dry and ferment cocoa beans, helping to develop the chocolate’s signature rich taste.