Headline, September 01 2022/ ''' '' IVORY COAST IVORY '' ''' : CHOCOLATES

''' '' IVORY COAST IVORY '' ''' :

 CHOCOLATES

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - for every subject in the world, is the exclusive ownership of every student of Ivory Coast. Just as it is the exclusive ownership of every student in the world.

IVORY COAST accounts for roughly 45 percent of the cocoa produced around the world, it receives only about 7 percent of the global revenue from the commodity.

The country's economic minister, Adama Coulibaly, said he found it hard to fathom that more than 60 years after Ivory Coast's independence, 70 percent of cocoa production leaves the country as raw cocoa beans, forfeiting most of the revenues they could yield.

The workers carefully peeled the husks from the cocoa beans to keep them from breaking, then tipped them into a metal tray that a colleague slid into an oven. The aroma of roasting filled the small shop in this seaside town, where the workers, Marie-France Kozoro, readied the next batch for its journey to becoming chocolate.

Nearly six million people rely on the cocoa industry in the West African nation of Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer. But most of them are not involved in the processing of the crispy, sour beans that are turned into a sweet treat.

Instead, they focus on growing, harvesting and selling raw cocoa beans bound for Europe and are mostly excluded from the financial benefits produced by the lucrative chocolate industry. It is chocolate made abroad, not raw cocoa, that yields the most revenue, and that money flows to larger foreign producers.

But in recent years, a new generation of Ivorian chocolatiers has been trying to change the equation.

Partly financed by the government and international aid agencies, the chocolatiers are turning cocoa beans into cocoa powder, beverages, chocolate bars and other goods in Ivory Coast, hoping to develop a local chocolate industry whose revenues can flow to farmers and other cocoa workers like Ms. Kozoro.

At Choco+, the artisanal workshop where Ms. Kozoro works, a dozen employees roast and grind cocoa beans, which they make into chocolate paste and cocoa tea, among other products.

''We're getting by, little-by-little, thanks to cocoa,'' said Ms. Kzoro works, a single mother who used to work long hours in a Chinese restaurant. At Choco+ she earns 50 percent more than the country's monthly minimum wage of about $94.

Similar efforts to spur a domestic chocolate industry have also sprung up in other cocoa-producing countries in West Africa, including Ghana and Nigeria.

Compared with Europe, the consumption of cocoa in the region remains tiny - in Ivory Coast, it is estimated to be about a pound per person per year -but it is rising for a range of cocoa-based products.

Chocolate bars tend to be preferred by foreigners, while West Africans favor other delicacies, including cocoa butter, cocoa powder and chocolate spread.

Entrepreneurs are also developing cocoa-flavored beers, liquors and vinegars, and a chocolate beverage mixed with bouye, the juice of the baobab tree's fruit.

The message around cocoa in Ivory Coast has always been to export, export, export,'' said Herve Dobonou, the manager at Choco+. ''But there's never been communication about the consumption of cocoa here.''

The Ivorian government is working to promote more ventures like Choco+ that produce a variety of cocoa-based products, as well as bigger industrial companies that can help build a domestic chocolate industry.

''Processing the beans in Ivory Coast could mean more revenue for Ivorians, more jobs and new markets,'' said Franck Koman, the coordinator of the Ivorian Fair Trade Network, a nonprofit group representing cocoa producers.

The need for better wages is immense. Of the roughly one million cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast, nearly 550,000 live below the global poverty line, according to the World Bank, and most of them have never tasted chocolate.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Africa, Exports, and Poverty continues. The World Students Society thanks author Elian Peltier.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society - the exclusive ownership of every student in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless