ISSUE 13
CACAO FROM THE I-COLLECTIVE A MULTI-MEDIA COOK BOOK
“Journalists who went unde documented traffickers in G them for $34 a child.”
reads a small paragraph on the Food Is P of the worlds cacao produced in just two Ivory Coast, the majority of forced labor a is consolidated there. Logos that you see home, like Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and Ca these modern plantations, with Cadbury subject of a TV documentary on child sla
Click photo for cocoa harvesting video!
So-called “latin american” countries, whi of cacao, only produce around 15% of th producing 90% of the fine cacoa exports reported, the focus has mainly been on B food and agri-business company, operat and industrial raw materials to over 20,90 two other “unnamed”corporations are be
“for allegedly failing to address labor abuses in their supply chain”. Here they have other battles too; drug cartels, the previously mentioned corporations, ceremonial theft, and cacao tourism. When it comes to the drug cartels, or “narcos”, the battle is against the land itself. The destruction of cacao producing lands to grow coca, a medicinal plant with a rich Indigenous cultural history. Even the word “Khokha”, meaning “the Tree”, comes from the Aymara Tribe of the Andes, but the subsequent manipulation of the plant by western science, having created the drug known as cocaine, has continued the desecration of Indigenous Traditional Medicines and created an underground global market with the end result being continued displacement of Indigenous peoples and way of being. It’s worth noting here that the Spaniards enslaved the tribal people of the region and forced them to work in their mines while also forcing them to use their sacred plant to the point that many died. Of the many other colonizer tactics of displacement and theft we face here, spiritual white supremacy is one of the most relentless. From the prepackaged medicines like cedar, white sage, and sweetgrass sold
ercover as cocoa farmers Ghana selling children to
Power website. Reread that. With 60% o West African nations, Ghana and and human trafficking in this industry e in your local store, and likely in your adbury are all corporations that fund as recently as April 2022 being the avery.
ile being amongst the birthplaces he world's chocolate exports while s, and while child slavery has been Brazil where Olam International, “a major ting in 60 countries and supplying food 00 customers worldwide”, along with eing sued by Brazilian state prosecutors
Click photo for cocoa opening video!
complete with a shell and turkey feather for smudging, that you see everywhere from health food stores to the local bookstore, to the selling of our Sweatlodge and Sundance Ceremonies in communities like Sedona, AZ and Crestone, CO, and that’s not to mention the plethora of books written for white consumption there is an endless onslaught of cultural theft. This is true also of our Mayan relatives Cacao Ceremonies. With tourists to their communities coming back to the U.S. and performing their “version” for monetary gain, with no connection or respect for those they have stolen cosmology from. Alongside the conversation of tourism, and its effects on the Maya people, is that of the post NAFTA and global economies. For a quick glimpse at how capitalism operates, and why it’s so efficient at destroying land based peoples way of being, you can simply look at the “Cacao Barometer: Latin American Baseline” where global elites decide how to commodify, monopolize, and profit from “undeveloped countries”. Enough from us though! Let's hear from our friend Julio Saqui of Che’il Mayan Chocolate, in Belize, about some of the struggles they face as Cacao protectors in their communities.