By Roman Gana
Tacloban, Leyte
December 15, 2024
Next bite you take into your favorite sweet chocolate bar could leave a bitter taste in your mouth if you knew the forced labor it took to produce that bar.
Salute the enslaved cocoa farmers by enjoying each single bite.
The Bean That Broke the World
The cacao bean is a small, bitter thing, hidden inside pods that hang from trees like forgotten ornaments. This bean, dried and ground, fuels the global obsession with chocolate. From the bustling streets of Paris to the crowded markets of Manila, people clamor for its sweetness, never stopping to think of the soil and sweat that bore it. The irony is rich: the world demands over five million tons of cacao yearly, but farmers can scarcely keep up. Production wavers, always lagging behind the insatiable mouths of chocolate lovers.
From Cacahuati to Cocoa
The name "cacao" whispers its origins in the Aztec word cacahuati, a term for the precious beans they prized as much as gold. But when the Europeans came, with their swords and their insatiable appetite for riches, they did what they always did: misunderstood. They misheard, misspelled, and cacahuati became "cocoa," stripped of its original meaning but not its value. The name changed, but the allure of the bean never wavered.
The Currency of the Mayans
Long before chocolate was a dessert, it was money. In the Mayan era, cacao beans were currency—small, portable, and as valuable as the treasures they could buy. A few beans could purchase food, tools, or even a slave. Wealth wasn’t measured in gold but in the number of beans in your pouch. The irony was bitterly poetic: the thing they consumed as a sacred drink was also the thing that paid for their survival. Cacao was so sacred in their culture that the god of cacao was considered a strong protector: and one of the most important Mayan deity: Ek Chuaj.
Today, the bean still pays, but not nearly enough for those who grow it.
Health: The Savior in the Shell
They say cacao is good for you. The rich antioxidants fight off the cruel march of age, lowering blood pressure and giving the heart a reason to beat. It carries magnesium and iron like some benevolent medicine from nature. The cynic might say the health benefits are just a convenient excuse to keep eating chocolate, but the truth is simpler: cacao heals, even as it tempts.
The Kings of Cacao
The world’s cacao comes from three rulers: Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Indonesia. Ivory Coast wears the crown, churning out over 40% of the world’s supply. Ghana follows, with beans of robust flavor, while Indonesia serves its humid lands to the cause. Yet, in this empire of beans, Ecuador stands apart. They call it the king of aroma, its beans fragrant with floral and nutty whispers. Fine chocolate makers pay dearly for these beans, calling them the gold standard. Why? The soil and the climate, they say, but also the tradition—centuries of careful cultivation that cannot be hurried.
Farmers: The Forgotten Hands
The hands that grow cacao are calloused and tired. They belong to farmers who earn less than $2 a day, despite the billions the industry rakes in. In Ghana, in Ivory Coast, they toil under a cruel sun, watching the middlemen grow fat on profits. They are promised fair trade, better wages, brighter futures, but promises do not pay for school fees or medical bills. Every bite of chocolate comes with this hidden cost.
Planting Dreams in Soil
To plant one hectare of cacao costs around $3,000. The seedlings alone eat into your savings, and the fertilizers do the rest. Then there is the waiting—years before the trees bear pods worth harvesting. Is it worth it? Maybe. The lucky farmers see returns that make the risk worthwhile, but for most, the gamble is stacked against them. Disease, drought, and the fickle markets are cruel gods to worship.
The Chocolate Buyers Club
Big buyers dominate the trade. Companies like Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey scoop up millions of tons, turning raw beans into candy bars and cocoa powder for the masses. They control the price, the supply chain, the narrative. The farmers, the small cooperatives, they are just players on the sidelines of a game they can never win.
The Sweet Smell of Profit
And so the world spins, sweetened by the bitter toil of cacao. The health-conscious sing its praises, the chocolate makers count their gold, and the farmers carry on, planting, harvesting, waiting. For the dreamers who think to invest, beware: cacao is a long game, one with winners far from the fields. But there is beauty in it still—the soil, the aroma, the chance to hold the world’s sweetness in your hands. If you dare, plant the bean and see.
So, the next time you savor that addictive bite of chocolate, let it be a little sweeter—if only for the moment you honor the hands that turned a humble cacao bean into something the world cannot live without.
Roman Gana
Historic and scary!