Why the African cocoa cartel is a bad idea

buyers do not usually pay their suppliers to produce something that they will never buy. Yet Nestlé, one of the world’s biggest chocolate-makers, is paying 10,000 cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast to do exactly that. Among them is Tanoh Kouadio, a 45-year-old cocoa farmer whom Nestlé will pay about 67,000 west African francs ($106) to raise chickens.Eating chocolate is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Selling it can be . Alas, growing the beans that go into it is neither particularly profitable nor pleasurable. Most cocoa farmers are poor; many of those who work for them are children. The reason that Nestlé is moonlighting as a pro-poultry is because it worries its customers may see chocolate as a guilty pleasure in more ways than one.