Capstone #5: Answering My Main Inquiry Question

What do you think when you think of Hershey or M&M? Sweet chocolate? Delicious candy? But what about child labor? Or slaves? Those last two are not what you think about when someone says “Do you want a KitKat?” I’m sad to say, but it’s true. I decided to study it, so…

My main inquiry question is, “What are the pros and cons of Fair Trade Certified Cocoa program?” Fair Trade is a model that imports goods without exploiting anyone.That means that the workers get paid a reasonable amount of money, rather than a few cents per hour.

There are additional pros in Fair Trade. One is that discrimination is not allowed. In some places without Fair Trade a man and a women might do the same job, but the man might get more money.That means that women will be able to earn 3 times the amount of money that they would normally earn. Everyone will get treated equally. So if if you are a women and you believe in a different religion, you will get treated the same as everyone else. Another pro is that you get paid more. A lot of cooperatives offer really high prices to the cocoa farmers. Before they got such low money that they weren’t able to survive.They got maybe a few cent per hour. Another good reason is that child labor can be reduced. For example with fair trade, children are not allowed to work. They get to go to go to school. Sometimes kids get trafficked from Mali to Ivory Coast and Ghana, where they will work as slaves with either little or no pay, but even if they do get paid, then it much less than they deserve. For example Brandon [Gaille] Marketing Expert & Blog Master said that, “Many children work long hours without any form of payment – or if they do earn money, it is a fraction of what is actually deserved.” Another good reason is that the techniques that they use is always 100% So whether they are harvesting cocoa beans or coffee beans, the techniques are 100% organic. Also,there is a minimum price for the farmers. So if the farmer doesn’t get to harvest that many beans, they will still get the same amount of money.

The cons are it takes a lot of money to have Fair Trade. To have Fair Trade, you need to have someone to see that you are meeting all of the requirements, you have to pay the farmers a minimum price. Also, you cannot have children work, so you have less people to work for you. Another con is that not everyone may get the same benefits. For Example, Brandon [Gaille] Marketing Expert & Blog Master said,”This can create divides within a community because some workers may not qualify to be part of the cooperative and may not receive the many benefits that coop workers are able to receive.”Another reason is that the laws don’t get enforced very well. There is still some child labor even though there is less. Slavery is still around, too. And, there is no real way to make sure that there is no slavery or child labor. One really important reason is that not a lot of people buy Fair Trade because it costs a lot. If you make it cheaper, than you will not earn a lot of money because it costs YOU a lot of money for Fair Trade. Most people see chocolate the same quality but one has the Fair Trade Label and it costs more, they would usually buy the cheaper one. That means that less money for the company. That is the pros and cons of Fair Trade.

 

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