Fair Trade & Food of the Gods -- by Kathy Hyzy

Kathy Hyzy is a member of Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and a regular participant in Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Physical and Spiritual Growth (aka Meeting for Chocolate.) She edits Western Friend, where she posted this article on 26 Apr 2010.

At the Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) conference this past weekend, the topic of chocolate came up in conversation, as it often seems to do when I am around. A Friend requested a copy of this article, which I wrote back in 2008. I thought others might also find it useful- enjoy!

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As some Friends can attest, one of the most pleasurable ways to connect with Quaker history is by nibbling on a bit of chocolate. Known as Theobroma cacao to botanists, the history of this “food of the gods” is closely intertwined with that of the Society of Friends. However, finding chocolate that honors our Quaker heritage along with Quaker values such as equality and integrity can be challenging in modern times. Industrious Friends and Chocolate Friends’ interest in chocolate has its roots in England’s Industrial Age. Although chocolate had been brought from the New World perhaps as early as the mid-1500’s, it remained a beverage of the elite until the Industrial Revolution.

Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer
The Frys, a Quaker family, changed all this in two ways: with the use of a steam engine to grind the beans (previously work done by mortar and pestle), and in 1847, the invention of the chocolate bar. No longer merely a beverage, chocolate took off, and the Royal Navy enlisted J.S. Fry & Sons in the effort to sober up their soldiers, replacing daily grog rations with chocolate bars. Other Quakers throughout history also advocated chocolate as a substitute for alcohol as part of the temperance movement. Best known in the U.S. for the Eastertime Cadbury Egg, Cadbury’s remains one of the world’s best-recognized names in chocolate.

John Cadbury, a Quaker from Birmingham, started his chocolate empire as a modest shop in 1824. At the time, chocolate was just beginning to gain in popularity with the masses, and the Cadburys managed to tap into the market with great success: by 1853, Cadbury’s became Queen Victoria’s personal supplier.

To support this success, the Cadburys built Bournville (see pictures), a model factory town outside of Birmingham. The “factory in a garden” featured sturdy housing, gardens for workers, reading and dining halls, quarters for pensioners, and educational programs for workers and their families. After several years of service, workers received a savings account. Cadbury’s was also the first company to adopt the 5-1/2 day workweek. By 1919, 7,500 workers lived in Bourneville. Modern-day Quakers may recognize Bourneville as the site of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, located in the Cadbury’s former family home.

Hershey PA Gardens

Other Quaker chocolatiers such as Fry, Rowntree, and even Milton Hershey in Pennsylvania, went on to build similarly appointed factory towns and to provide for the well-being of their workers.

The Dark Side of Chocolate

Although the factories where cacao beans were processed into cocoa and chocolate bars were humane, Friends have had a much harder time addressing the inequalities found on cacao plantations. Native to the South American tropics, cacao trees will only grow within ten degrees of the Equator, preferably as part of a tropical forest understory. This means that the vast majority of cacao is grown in countries with poor human rights records. Over 40% of today’s cacao comes from the Ivory Coast and Ghana, two African nations well-known for child slavery and worker abuses. Other cacao producers include Indonesia and numerous South American countries.

In some circumstances, Quakers were able to make a difference on cacao plantations. After witnessing firsthand the near-slavery of laborers in Portugese West Africa, the Frys boycotted West African cacao until conditions improved. Despite this good example, the Cadburys are known to have turned a blind eye to the forced labor, death rates as high as 20% per year, and other horrors occurring in the same region—the source of over half their cacao beans. It wasn’t until 1909, after the story broke in English newspapers, that the Cadburys boycotted West African cacao.

Guilt-Free Confections
modern child slavery, from The Walrus Said
Sadly, West Africa’s legacy of slavery and worker abuse remains alive and well today, as does its predominance of the world cacao market. A 2002 study of four West African cacao-producing countries by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture estimates that 284,000 children work on cacao plantations. Many of these children work twelve-hour days, receive little or no schooling, and regularly apply pesticides, wield machetes, and undertake other dangerous labor. As many as 12,000 of these children may be slaves, sold into service by parents from surrounding countries. Cacao workers have also suffered from years of depressed cacao prices, often earning less per pound than the cost of production. Though prices have risen in recent years, global markets continue to be unstable and unfair.

However, fair trade certified chocolates are a way to eat sweets without a heavy heart. Fair trade certification provides a variety of benefits, including a reasonable minimum per pound rate and environmental standards for farming practices. Worker ownership is encouraged, and child labor and forced labor are banned. Although organic standards differ depending on the certifier (USDA, Oregon Tilth, and Organic Trade Association are just a few), they often include some elements relating to fair labor—so in a pinch, if fair trade chocolate is unavailable, reach for organic. And don’t forget to thank our Quaker forebears for their chocolaty contributions to our physical and spiritual well-being!

Sources:
Global Exchange
Equiterre (Canada)
Sophie & Michael Coe, The True History of Chocolate, Thames and Hudson 2nd ed. 2007.
Lowell J. Satre, Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business, Ohio U Press 2005.

Much like coffee, fair trade chocolate is rapidly gaining popularity in the U.S. Although more expensive than other chocolates, the small premium buys a great deal of peace of mind. The following is a partial list of nationally marketed fair-trade chocolates; seek them out at your local co-op or natural foods store.

• Dagoba Chocolate
• Equal Exchange Endangered Species Chocolate
• Green & Black’s Divine Chocolate
• Global Exchange
• Theo Chocolates

Peace Teaching: stories from North Kivu, the Congo -- by Zawadi Nikuze

Camp de Kahe IDP camp, Kitchanga: by Médecins Sans Frontières

Despite the official end of the Rwandan genocide, Burundi civil war, and the 2nd Congo War, over 5 million have died and at least 1 million have been forced from their homes, most recently by the 2005-09 violence in North Kivu with mass rape and kidnapping of child soldiers, intertribal and intra-tribal murders, which the UN force (MONUC) has been unable to stop. Kivu's gold, copper, tin, coltan,cobalt and diamonds are looted by all factions to buy arms. See this UN map for place-names in these stories from FWCC World News (2009/2) about the work of African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) Peace Teams.

Salome Mapendo Sife is a 31 year-old mother of eight. Her children range from 11 months to 14 years old.

My husband and I are originally from Shabunda in South Kivu but my husband was working in Mweso Hospital as a nurse. Life was good in Mweso, my husband was earning a good salary and I had a kitenge (African fabric) business, sold salted fish and had a small cosmetics shop. We had been living in Mweso for a year when the war erupted. That was the turning point of our life.

On September 7, 2007, war broke out in the Congo and we left with our children. We were fearful to carry anything else. The whole village was on the road, some people were able to carry a few belongings and cattle. On the way, I lost my 7 year old daughter and I got more depressed. We arrived in Bulengo internally displaced persons' camp [see photos] on September 13, 2007. By God's grace, I found my daughter in the camp with other lost children. She was with another little girl, whom we later adopted.

We were extremely hungry, tired, thirsty, dirty, and had no shelter. During the day, we were roasted by the sun and in the night we were soaked with the rain. Each family was entitled to five litres of water per day; there were only four latrines for thousands of us. Due to lack of proper sanitation, cholera broke out and many people died. Other people drowned in lake because we did not know how to safely fetch water.

Life continued to be difficult and I contemplated joining my father in Kindu. I then learnt that he had been killed with my five brothers, my three uncles, my grandparents and family friends. They had taken refuge at our farm and the killers had found them there. This made my life even more difficult and I wished I was also dead!

At the same time, my husband could not stand the suffering and joined a group of stressed men who used to drink the local brew from morning to evening. This brought a lot of quarrels and fights in the home. The children suffered the most for both my husband and I were taking our stress to them. The idea of running away with children came to my mind because my husband was becoming more violent and we were all frustrated.

When the Friends Church under the Goma [Rwanda] Relief program began the training in Bulengo camp, my husband was among the first group. After the 3 days of HROC workshops [Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, of African Great Lakes Initiative], he shared what he learnt and he began changing a bit. He stopped spending his whole day drinking.

In October 2008, I also attended a HROC workshop and I was really blessed. The sharing moment helped me see that there are other people who are also suffering even more than me.
Johari's Window (a HROC exercise where you realize how others see you and how you see yourself) also helped me to understand myself and others. I have also attended the Alternatives to Violence workshop (AVP) which has been helpful too. Now I consult with my husband and there is no more violence against our children.

I had developed hatred against Tutsis because they are the source of our suffering but we have some Tutsi here in the camp and we are all undergoing the same suffering. I tried to find out who killed my father and all who were with him and I was shocked to learn that it was his own people, our own tribesmen. This changed my perception and I no longer discriminate. I apply all these teachings in my Women's Loan Group work, especially when there is a difficult conflict. I thank everyone, including the donors and facilitators, for the different peace workshops, they bring to us in the camps, for we live in a conflict environment.

Camp de Kahe, Kitchanga : UNHCR / S. Schulman. See more

Floribert Mushi is a 36 year old married father of five. He too has adopted a child.

I am a nurse by profession but I used to be a farmer, too. I led a good life in Ngungu. Professionally, I was well paid and my farming was also doing well. I used to harvest 30 sacks of potatoes, 20 sacks of peas, and 18 sacks of beans which I would sell in Goma [Rwanda]. I also had livestock which I used to sell in our local market. But, by the time I fled, I only had 25 sheep which were all eaten by the militias.

I fled in November 2006 with nothing. Life was difficult in the camp; no shelter, no water, no food. We slept outside for 6 months. This situation made me a bitter, unhappy man. I was developing some hatred towards some people and ethnic groups.

In May 2008, I attended the HROC workshop, then AVP, conflict transformation, mediation and I also participated in setting up the peace committee of Mugunga. All these peace teachings have helped me a lot in dealing with day-to-day conflict in the camp. My wife also got a chance of participating in HROC and this helped us manage the trauma in us and in our children.

child soldier in N. Kivu, 2003: Der Spiegel

In March this year, my tent was torched by bad people in the camp and all the belongings perished in the fire. These guys were caught and the camp directing committee was suggesting to delete their names from the list of IDPs but I said, "No, let's settle this by peaceful ways of dialogue".

Now I use these teachings in resolving differences in my family and in the community. We thank you for such teachings for it helps us in difficult situations. Please take these teachings to the people in our villages for they are suffering and are very traumatized. I was there recently and they are undergoing a lot of things. They are in conflict and there is no peaceful cohabitation between the farmers and cattle owners. I strongly believe that they will change like we did in the camp.

[Prof Carl Taylor's 2004 study for Oxfam by points to climate and overpopulation as factors in these conflicts. - Ed.]

HROC (pronounced HE-rock) is a three-day experiential reconciliation workshop modeled on AVP that deals with the personal and community trauma from the violent conflicts in the region. An advanced workshop and a special workshop for HIV+ women have also been developed. See our blog on HROC in Rwanda and the video Icyizere : Hope; also AGLI, Friends Peace Teams and FPT Peaceways magazine; CYM workcamps in Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, Uganda; Martin Gilbraith's photos of Quaker reconciliation work, videos of CEEACO Yearly Meeting and Women's Forum in S. Kivu 2008; and photos by children of Bududa Vocational Institute in Uganda.

Other sources -- N. Kivu refugee map Jan 2008, Emily Troutman's blog, Tyler Kacek's photos of Bulengo IDP camp, the work of other churches in AGLI. Women's stories in African Renewal Jan 2007. UN says Congo must prosecute rapists, offer compensation: Reuters 3 Mar 2011. On "blood minerals" see BBC 13 Nov 08, Global Post 4 Dec 09, and UN investigators' report to Security Council 23 Nov 09.

On M.L.King day, "a stone of hope" - notes of a native daughter, by Elizabeth Ayres

Often, in the journal that is my heart, the only entry is a note about how the sun looked on the Chesapeake Bay that day. If it sparkled. If it spread across the surface like a sheet of silver silk. If it disappeared altogether into heavy leaden swells.

Other days are more eventful. Everything that’s ever happened to me is there, in the journal that is my heart, even the things I would like to erase because they cause more hurt than I want to endure, or because they fill me with a sharp and bitter anger, or because they prove I am not nearly as good a person as I’d like to believe myself to be and hence, make me ashamed.

Artists's conception of the Chesapeake crash © Virginian Pilot in A.C.Charania's blog; see also USGS: Chesapeake meteorite.

Last year I discovered something that warranted a long entry in my journal. The Chesapeake Bay has a hole in it. Some 35 million years ago, a giant meteorite crashed to earth, gouging a deep crater in the ocean floor. Millions of tons of water, sediment and shattered rock spewed into the air for hundreds of miles along the east coast, and the resulting tsunami may have overtopped the Blue Ridge mountains.

The hole has filled in over the aeons, of course. Until 1983, no one even suspected its existence, because the crater – twice the size of Rhode Island and nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon – is buried 300 to 500 meters beneath the lower Bay and its surrounding peninsulas. Acknowledged or not, the chasm makes its presence felt. Continual slumping of rubble within it affects the course of rivers. Groundwater is easily contaminated by subsurface salt. All four major earthquakes in the region were near or inside the trace of the crater rim.

Last year I made another long entry in the journal that is my heart. An African-American was elected president of the United States. His inauguration is January 20th, which, this year, follows the day our nation celebrates the birthday of another African-American whose dream has been inscribed in the journal that is the American heart.

I’ve been re-reading Martin Luther King’s touchstone speech. I’ve also been re-reading James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son. And I’ve been thinking about that hole underneath the Chesapeake Bay. After the meteor struck, the sea floor around the crater became a dead zone for some 3,000 years. King and Baldwin both describe the dead zone created by slavery: segregation, discrimination, oppression, injustice. The burden of shame shouldered by generation after generation of white Americans. The loneliness endured by generation after generation of black Americans, exiles in their own land. Everyone scrabbling for so long in the hard soil of mutual fear.

These things are penned in the journals of all our hearts, we cannot erase them, but we can turn the page now and start something new. I have on my desk an announcement from the Calvert Gazette, dated June 21, 1919. It says that “the colored voters of Calvert County” -- one of the three counties that comprise Southern Maryland -- have taken stock of “the very valuable part they had taken in the war” and think themselves “entitled to some political recognition.” Consequently, “they decided to endeavor to put a colored man on the ticket this fall.” Political recognition of value and entitlement. An affirmation of equality. This inauguration is that, and more. It is, if you will, proof that life has been fully restored after a devastating impact event.

America will always be affected by her slave-owning past, just as she will always be shaped by the destruction of her indigenous culture. Forever we will be subject to slumpings of a particular kind of rubble, to unique subsurface tensions, to fault lines that invite inexorable seismic disturbances, these are our collective heritage. But something else is ours as well, yes? Something we’ve inherited as a people? It is the capacity to transform our weaknesses into strengths.

Martin Luther King prophesied that one day we would “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Barack Obama insisted, “Yes, we can.” Whatever shape the stone of hope takes, I am glad I’m one of 300 million Americans carving it.

Taking privatization to its logical conclusion

YESmen, Philadelphia 11 Nov 2006 - At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.

The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.

"Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.

The audience included Prof. Charles Soludo (Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria), Dr. Laurie Ann Agama (Director for African Affairs at the Office of the US Trade Representative), and other notables. Agama prefaced her remarks by thanking Schmidt for his macroscopic perspective, saying that the USTR view adds details to the WTO's general approach. Nigerian Central Bank Governor Soludo also acknowledged the WTO proposal, though he did not seem to appreciate it as much as did Agama. photo: Schmidt and Agama

A system in which corporations own workers is the only free-market solution to African poverty, Schmidt said. "Today, in African factories, the only concern a company has for the worker is for his or her productive hours, and within his or her productive years," he said. "As soon as AIDS or pregnancy hits—out the door. Get sick, get fired. If you extend the employer's obligation to a 24/7, lifelong concern, you have an entirely different situation: get sick, get care. With each life valuable from start to finish, the AIDS scourge will be quickly contained via accords with drug manufacturers as a profitable investment in human stewardees. And educating a child for later might make more sense than working it to the bone right now."

To prove that human stewardry can work, Schmidt cited a proposal by a free-market think tank to save whales by selling them. "Those who don't like whaling can purchase rights to specific whales or groups of whales in order to stop those particular whales from getting whaled as much," he explained. Similarly, the market in Third-World humans will "empower" caring First Worlders to help them, Schmidt said.

One conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain as stewards once their employees are too old to work or reproduce. Schmidt responded that a large new biotech market would answer that worry. He then reminded the audience that this was the only possible solution under free-market theory.

There were no other questions from the audience that took issue with Schmidt's proposal.

During his talk, Schmidt outlined the three phases of Africa's 500-year history of free trade with the West: slavery, colonialism, and post-colonial markets. Each time, he noted, the trade has brought tremendous wealth to the West but catastrophe to Africa, with poverty steadily deepening and ever more millions of dead. "So far there's a pattern: Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. Good for business, bad for people. That's why we're so happy to announce this fourth phase for business between Africa and the West: good for business — GOOD for people."

The panel on which Schmidt spoke was entitled "Trade in Africa: Enhancing Relationships to Improve Net Worth." ... Throughout the comments by Schmidt and his three co-panelists, which lasted 75 minutes, Schmidt's stewardee, Thomas Bongani-Nkemdilim, remained standing at respectful attention off to the side. "This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything—even people."

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Wikinews: The culture jamming YESmen recently delivered a presentation at a Wharton Business School conference on trade and investment in Africa. A performance artist, using the name Hanniford Schmidt, pretending to be a WTO representative, announced a new WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" in some parts of Africa. Schmidt reported that "One conference attendee asked what incentive employers had to remain as stewards once their employees are too old to work or reproduce" but that "there were no other questions from the audience that took issue with Schmidt's proposal."
Wharton Business School placed a notice on the conference site stating that their invitation of Schmidt had been based upon his misrepresentation of himself as a representative of the WTO, and that they do not endorse his views.

A (YESmen-produced) satiric WTO News item on the Schmidt speech adds this

Important Note:

Many visitors from all over the political spectrum have read this release and believed it to mean that the WTO is officially in favor of slavery. In actual fact, we at the WTO would never, ever wish to suggest that the modern version of the West's free trade with Africa is tantamount to its older form, slavery, or even worse than its other older form, colonialism. That would fly in the face of everything that we stand for.The catastrophic failure of free-trade policies in Africa may be one partial source of this confusion. The actual, literal slavery that flourishes under the auspices of free trade (in Brazil, Jordan, and elsewhere) may be another.

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More seriously, see Laurie-Ann Agama's 2005 privatization proposals for Africa; the USTR's self-proclaimed role in pushing globalization; Purdue University's Global Trade Analysis Project; Wikipedia on WTO and structural adjustment programs (SAP); Charles Soludo, co-editor, African Voices on Structural Adjustment; SAPRI; NEPAD and its critique by Patrick Bond; IATP Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (formerly WTOWatch).