🟠 Journal Entry: Wellness Begins With Fairness – Reclaiming Cocoa and Dignity from a Bastardised System
- Ojodu Grassroots
- 25 jun
- 3 minuten om te lezen
🟠 Journal Entry: Wellness Begins With Fairness – Reclaiming Cocoa and Dignity from a Bastardised System
By Ola Olajide Stichting GREAT The Hague
“They use our cocoa to sell sugar… and sickness.”
These are the words of an elder in Emure EKITI cocoa town in Nigeria—his voice calm, but heavy with truth. In that single sentence, he captured what global trade reports, climate conferences, and CSR brochures often ignore.
Cocoa, one of Africa’s most powerful exports, has been bastardised.
Not just exploited—but stripped of meaning, fairness, and health.
🍫 From Sacred Crop to Sugar Delivery System
Once a symbol of ceremony and vitality in Indigenous cultures, cocoa has become the raw ingredient for a $100+ billion industry that sells sweetness—not sustenance. The majority of “chocolate” products in Western markets today contain less than 20% cocoa, but more than 60% refined sugar, dairy substitutes, emulsifiers, and chemical preservatives.
In truth, the global chocolate industry is not built on cocoa.
It is built on selling sugar—disguised as luxury.
While African farmers are underpaid and overworked, multinational brands rake in massive profits, contributing significantly to Western GDPs.
💰 GDP vs. Wellness: Who Is Really Winning?
The paradox is this:
Western nations boast high GDPs, partly fueled by African commodities like cocoa.
Yet their citizens suffer rising rates of diabetes, obesity, and chronic illness—driven by ultra-processed foods.
Meanwhile, African farmers, despite producing the base of these “goods,” can’t afford school fees or basic healthcare.
It is a textbook case of a broken system—one that harms both producer and consumer, even as it inflates economic growth on paper.
The GDP obsession has blinded policymakers to what truly matters:
Wellness. Fairness. Human dignity.
If an economy grows by poisoning its own population and exploiting others, is it growing—or is it decaying from the inside out?
📣 Our Call to Policymakers: Choose Wellness, Not Just Wealth
At Stichting GREAT The Hague, we urge governments, economists, and ethical brands to ask themselves:
What is the purpose of profit when it poisons the planet and its people?
What is the value of growth if it is built on injustice?
It’s time for a wellness economy, not just a wealth economy.
One where cocoa supports health, not harm. Where farmers thrive, not survive.
And it starts with structural fairness.
✊🏾 Our Hybrid Empowerment Model: Justice in Action
We are co-developing a Hybrid Model that empowers cocoa farmers as partners in wellness:
🔸 Profit-Sharing (Short-Term Relief)
Registered cooperatives receive a fixed share of profits per season.
Payments are transparent, traceable, and delivered via digital platforms.
🔸 Co-Ownership (Long-Term Wealth)
Farmers earn shares in processing/export companies.
Equity unlocks dividends, voting power, and generational wealth.
Trusts ensure local ownership is protected and sustainable.
📊 Our 5-Year Forecast
Impact Area
Year 1
Year 5
Farmers onboarded
500
10,000+
Avg. profit share/farmer
€150
€500+
Cooperative valuation
€50K
€1M+
Farmer-shareholders
100
5,000+
Farm-gate income growth
+20%
+60%
🌍 Cocoa Can Heal—If We Let It
Cocoa is a superfood when pure. It reduces inflammation, improves mood, and supports heart health.
Yet its global form has become a toxin—because the value system behind it is toxic.
Let’s return cocoa to its truth:
A product of soil and spirit, not exploitation.
A source of nourishment, not empty calories.
A symbol of shared humanity, not colonial residue.
🔁 Let’s Flip the Chain
We don’t need another certification sticker or PR campaign.
We need a value chain inversion—where producers own equity, not just poverty.
Where chocolate bars come with traceable dignity, not hidden despair.
🤝 Join Us – Be Part of the Solution
We invite:
Ethical brands ready to trace cocoa to shared ownership
Impact investors ready to back a wellness-centered model
Diaspora leaders eager to reclaim cocoa for community healing
Policymakers ready to link trade justice with public health
📍 Laurens Reaelstraat 59, The Hague
🧡 Final Word: Wellness for Humankind Starts with Fairness
Fairness is not an afterthought. It is the foundation.
Until cocoa farmers are treated as co-creators in global value, the system will continue to be diseased.
Let the chocolate we eat reflect the justice we believe in.
Let the sweetness of profit never again come from someone else’s suffering.
It’s Your Turn. Their Turn. Our Turn.
Because wellness begins with fairness.
#CocoaJustice #greatthehague #OlaOlajide #ojodugrassroots #WellnessEconomy #Africa Own Cocoa #FairTradeIsNotEnough #WellnessOverGDP #DignityInTrade #YourTurn #SocialJustice #InclusiveEconomy #FromBitterToBetter
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