Issues

Climate Change

Many cacao farmers are small and located in West Africa. With climate change becoming more and more of an issue, cacao plants are very sensitive to the weather. They like to grow in hot and humid conditions, so when the weather is disrupted it can be hard for the plants to grow as well. One way to fix this is finding different places to grow their crops because they will not be able to survive there anymore, but many problems arise as most of cacao is grown in one spot because those are the ideal weather conditions. So if that gets changed and the farmers need to move their crops it can be hard finding better conditions.

Deforestation

As stated above climate change is becoming a problem so farmers need to move their crops. Cocoa tree can take a year to start producing chocolate, so it can be a set back to farmers if they are changing locations. Deforestation is caused when farmers need more land to plant their cacao trees. According to worldwildlife.org they say that around 70% of deforestation is credited to cacao farming.

Child Labor

In Ghana and Ivory Coast, the main producers of cacao beans, there have been problems with the use of child labor to help with harvest that can be hazardous. Most of the production is from small farmers that make less than a dollar per day, so they turn to child labor to help keep the cost down. These children that are working are more than not the children of the farmers and not strangers. Many of the farmers in Ghana move from one country to another for work, usually traveling with their families where they help as well because they don't attend school.

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