As part of a push to purchase all of its cocoa through a fully traceable, directly sourced supply chain by 2025, Nestle will begin paying cocoa farmers if they ensure their children go to school rather than being out tending to crops.
Investors, consumers and governments have mounted pressure on chocolate makers to make sure the cocoa beans they source were not produced using child labour or in illegal cocoa plantations in protected forests. These both of which are common in West Africa.
Among 45% of children in agricultural households in Ivory Coast and Ghana cocoa growing areas were engaged in child labour, a recent survey by University of Chicago found.
Nestle said it will triple its current annual spending on sustainable cocoa to give a total investment of 1.41 billion by 2030.
“Only by tackling the root causes, we will have an impact,” Nestle’s Head of Operations Magdi Batato said.
To qualify for the payments, farmers have to send their children to school, prune cocoa trees, plant shade trees and diversify their income with other crops or livestock.
To check that children really are attending school and farmers are following the rules, IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, will monitor the programme with other third parties.
Under the new programme, farmers will receive direct cash payments via mobile transfer of up to 500 francs ($543) a year. This represented 20-25% of a farmer’s average annual income.
The incentive will then be levelled at 250 francs after two years and progressively extended to all of Nestle’s 160,000 cocoa farmers by 2030.
The VOICE Network, a global grouping of non-governmental organisations and trade unions working on sustainability in cocoa, said that cash transfers were not a substitute for a commitment to paying a fair overall price for the bean and farmers were still vulnerable to low world market prices.
It however added that Nestle’s cash transfer plan was “a big step forward”.
Children casually helping on family farms outside of school time do not fall under the International Labour Organisation’s definition of child labour.
