Approximately 73% of the world’s four million tons of cocoa is produced by more than two million cocoa farmers in West Africa.
Many of my chocolate and cocoa company members have been providing assistance to these farmers since the early to mid-1900s, none more than The Hershey Company which began to purchase cocoa from West Africa in 1930 and in 1948 was a founding member of an organization I formerly headed, the American Cocoa Research Institute.
Beginning in the late 1990s the chocolate and cocoa industry I represent realized that the assistance being provided through...
