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Disclosure:

I was on the same University of Chocolate trip to Ecuador in 2005 that both Sam and Langdon were on. I think I am responsible for convincing them to make the trip. I, too, was surprised at a lot of what I saw there.

Hi, Sam! Hi, Langdon!

That said, think a lot of this is the pot calling the kettle black:

Wages

The minimum wage in the US (about $15,000 for 2000 hours/year -- BEFORE TAXES) isn't enough to support a family of four these days in lots of US cities; while it may be above the official poverty line I can assure you it would be a threadbare existence.

Child Labor

While one definition of chores might be "household tasks like washing the dishes, or doing the laundry," I can assure you that the chores on a family farm in the US (and Australia - I have relatives that own a sheep station and I have been there during shearing) include tasks that involve heavy physical labor. Is AU$20 week allowance fair pay for the work being done?

We can bicker about this all we want, but we can't pretend that the problem is only in far-away places. Chances are there's an emotionally and/or sexually abused child on family farm being asked to perform "adult" chores for starvation wages (allowance) within an hour of where you are sitting as you read this. Is that morally any different from a child on a family farm in Ecuador or Costa Rica?

Sustainability

Reading Sam's account, there is no way cacao can be a sustainable commodity because of the oil required to transport it. If we take Sam's argument literally and to its illogical extreme, the TAVA factory should be in Vanuatu within horse-drawn cart distance of the village where the cacao is grown, made completely from materials sourced within a day's walk, be 100% solar-powered, and the chocolate made solely for local consumption so as not to consume any petrochemicals. Of course, a cacao/chocolate business organized along those principles wouldn't be sustainable, would it? The Grenada Chocolate Company comes remarkably close except that they only source 25% of their power from their solar installation and the finished chocolate has to be shipped off the island.

Fair Trade Often Isn't

At the risk of being very non-PC, FLO is a bunch of white people in air-conditioned offices in Europe telling non-white farmers toiling in the tropics what's fair. Come again? How come the farmers didn't get to decide what was fair?

Certification Programs, Useful as They Are, All Share the Same Basic Flaws

The farmer or the co-op has to pay a certification fee. Certification organizations are businesses and I think they should pay the farmers rather than charge them. It is the cost of certification, which is borne by the farmers and co-ops, that is the largest barrier to widespread certification. After how many years how many Fair Trade/RA certified cocoa co-ops are there?

The farmer bears all the risk. FLO takes a fixed fee per unit irrespective of the price of the commodity involved. The fee FLO takes should float along with the commodity so that they are sufficiently motivated - as a business - to do what's necessary to grow the business. Right now the economics are entirely artificial and therefore not sustainable.

All certification programs assume that all actors in the supply chain are honest. Come again? We don't assume that our governments are honest so why should we assume that some cooperative in Ecuador is above reproach?

In Conclusion:

While I agree that certification programs are better than not having certification programs, they are only one approach. I agree that rather than arguing over the relative merits of one approach over another, the goal should be to try as many things as possible to see what works best. What works best in one country may not work in another. There are no simple answers, there is no magic bullet.

Where I do applaud Sam and Langdon, from what I have seen of their trips to Vanuatu, what I have heard them say, and what I recognize as their determination and commitment to make it work is that they are taking personal responsibility for implementing their position; they are walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Mott Green (founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company) falls into that category, too. They are not handing off their responsibility to some third-party certification organization which has different business objectives. They are living their ethics, day in and day out.

In the long run, I think that's what's necessary - taking personal and/or corporate responsibility. Unfortunately that's expensive, so public companies, ever mindful of their share price, will never be allowed to do the right thing by stock market analysts who punish the share price if earnings are as little as a penny under expectations. They will always abdicate responsibility to NGOs and claim that they are doing the "right" thing. Not.

:: Clay
www.discoverchocolate.com

Hi again, Sam. I’m sure you didn’t mean your response to sound so sarcastic and mean-spirited. Of course, I don’t think it’s acceptable for children to do heavy labor. I was merely saying that sometimes kids of farm owners do chores around the farm and house. I did not characterize chores as heavy labor nor did I say it was “ok for a boy to do the work of a man” as you say above; perhaps I was unclear, so I apologize for confusing you.

Not for one minute, however, do I think that what you saw is the norm on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. But you say you saw children doing heavy labor on a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm. Please send us (canopy@ra.org) the name of the farm, and we will have our partner conservation group investigate. They will be very upset that they certified a farm where this is happening, since they are hard-working and honorable Ecuadorians and obviously do not want the children of their friends and neighbors to be exploited in this way! They audit the farms annually and do surprise audits too, but can’t always be aware of everything that happens. I know correcting the problem is as important to you as to us, so your passing along the name and location of the farm will at least help out the kids you saw there.

Listen, I just have to tell you that I’m not far removed from our certification standards, which are here: http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/agriculture/certified-crops/standards_2005.html

... I helped develop them and have been on hundreds of farms throughout the tropics and talked with hundreds of farmers and workers. So I feel quite close to and quite proud of our certification program. You may be interested in reading more about our cocoa work here: http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/agriculture/certified-crops/cocoa.html
... and a profile of one of our certified cocoa farms http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/profiles/documents/ecuador_cocoa.pdf

Thanks for your concern and dedication.


In response to Diane J from the Rainforest Alliance: I stand by everything I said in this interview.
--
In her comment, Diane J says that the children laboring in the cocoa industry in Ecuador are really just doing "chores". According to my dictionary, a "chore" is a small routine task, especially a domestic one. Most Westerners would associate the concept of "chores" with household tasks like washing the dishes, or doing the laundry.
What I saw (and photographed) in Ecuador were pre-pubescent boys struggling to move sacks of wet cocoa beans, within the context of a commercial enterprise which was certified by the Rainforest Alliance. The boys were not working at home or on a family farm - they were working in a fermentation co-op. The type of sacks these boys were handling weigh 60kg (130lb) when the beans are dry. When the beans are wet, they're even heavier. I run a chocolate factory, and I can assure you that maneuvering these sacks is very hard work. It is by no means a "chore" fit for children.
According to the United Nations, "the cruelest forms of child labor are those that force children to work for long hours in dangerous conditions for little to no compensation".
Heavy manual labor is considered dangerous for children under 18. The children I saw working in Ecuador were undoubtedly doing heavy manual labor. And, what's more, Diane from the Rainforest Alliance "assures" us that these children were being paid nothing for their work!
So, let me get this straight: according to Diane from the Rainforest Alliance, it's OK for a boy to do the work of a man - as long as he's "not receiving wages"! But, according to the UN, this is one of the cruelest forms of child labor. It also happens to be against the law in Ecuador (and every other country I've studied).
What's more, according to the Rainforest Alliance's own standards for cocoa production (PDF doc):
5.19.c Minors must not carry large or heavy loads (no more than 20% of a minor's body weight), and
5.19.f Minors must be remunerated in cash for their labors.
It seems that Diane, if she really is a "long time staffer" of the Rainforest Alliance, is totally out of touch with her own organization's certification standards. (Incidentally, under these rules, a child shouldn't be attempting to lift a 60kg sack unless he weighs 300kg, or 660lb).
Child labor typically exists when the parents are so poor that they are financially compelled to have their children work for direct (or indirect) economic gain. One way to combat child labor is to pay the parents enough money so that they can afford to send their children to school. The premium prices guaranteed by organic and Fair Trade certification help to make child labor unnecessary. Sadly, Rainforest Alliance certification guarantees no such premium - indeed, the Rainforest Alliance only states that laborers must be paid the local minimum wage.
However, a 2006 report by the US Department of State found that Ecuador's national minimum wage "does not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family". (They reached the same conclusion about Costa Rica's minimum wage). Of course, many thousands of workers in the USA also know from first-hand experience how hard it is to support a large family on a single minimum wage.
But, nevertheless (according to Diane J) the Rainforest Alliance's own staff in Costa Rica believe that it's acceptable for minors to be paid nothing for their labor. This is a disgrace.

As a long time staffer of the Rainforest Alliance, based in our Costa Rica office, I’m moved to respond to a couple of unfounded complaints in the interview with Sam Madell.

We are indeed very proud of the tremendous progress made by the cocoa farmers in Ecuador. These certifications are done by the Rainforest Alliance’s local partner in Ecuador, Conservación y Desarrollo, an honorable and hard-working grassroots environmental group. The farms are also certified by Fair Trade.

I guess it’s hard for many people to see children working on a family farm in a developing country and not assume they are being exploited. We can assure Madell that the kids he saw are not receiving wages, are not on the payroll and are most likely the children of the farm owners. Where I grew up, we called this “chores.” It’s a long standing tradition, in the USA, Ecuador, Australia, and all around the world, that kids help out around the family farm. Further, Rainforest Alliance standards ensure that farm workers’ children have access to health care and schools. This is a very different situation from what is happening in Cote d’Ivoire.

Since organic standards (which I think are important...it’s just another approach from Rainforest Alliance certification) do not have social or economic requirements, I wonder how Madell can call Rainforest Alliance standards “much weaker” than organic’s? On what basis is he saying they are weaker than Fair Trade, since Fair Trade doesn’t consider the treatment of workers in their standards? I don’t get that at all, but probably because I’ve worked alongside farmers who have dedicated so much time to improving worker housing, building facilities so they can more properly manage solid waste, planting trees along waterways to prevent erosion and help protect wildlife.

Do we have to continue to have this battle among different certification programs? It’s fine to challenge programs when we think they need to be more vigilant, but all this comparison and accusations that one is somehow “better” than the other seems like a waste of energy to me. They are all doing something positive, but with different approaches. They are all striving to make the world a better place and give consumers a role in doing that.