Carol Off: Bitter chocolate: anatomy of an industry
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Carol Off: Bitter chocolate: anatomy of an industry The New Press, New York, 2014, 326 pp, ISBN 978-1-59558-980-4 Allison L. Brown1 Accepted: 19 May 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
“No matter how fierce the fighting, the trucks that transport cocoa beans always seem to get their cargo to the port of San-Pédro [Côte d’Ivoire] and then onward to the candy counters of the Western world” (p. 179). In Carol Off’s parthistory book, part-exposé, Bitter Chocolate: Anatomy of an Industry, she explains the history of cocoa from ancient times to present day, then investigates Côte d’Ivoire’s modern role in the cocoa trade by examining the turbulent reality that is cocoa production. Off skillfully puts cocoa in context, as Côte d’Ivoire’s major export crop and lifeline, and provides in-country interviews of child slaves tricked into working in cocoa plantations and reporters mixed up in political corruption. The book was originally published in hardcover in 2006, while the paperback version was published in 2014. As a result, most of the research and interviews were completed from 2002 to 2004, effectively encapsulating the Ivoirian cocoa sector during the First Ivoirian Civil War, which took place from 2002 to 2007. After a sluggish cocoa history introductory section, the original content of the book is presented in a gripping fashion in chapters six through eleven. Off begins this part with a concise history of Côte d’Ivoire, concentrating on the impact of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny’s reign from 1960 to 1993. Houphouet-Boigny’s policies encouraged in-migration from poorer West African countries, religious tolerance, and above all, cocoa production. His public works projects were responsible for a streamlined cocoa industry that enabled Côte d’Ivoire to become the number one cocoa producer in the world. This section continues by delving into how the system encourages the transport of child slaves into Côte d’Ivoire. An interview with Abdoulaye Macko, a former Malian * Allison L. Brown [email protected] 1
Department of Food Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Diplomat, illuminates the child slavery situation and its hopelessness. Macko, who recovered 250 child slaves from Côte d’Ivoire, was later fired by the government of Mali because [according to Macko] trade relations between the two countries were more important than saving the lives of child slaves. Off also interviews Malian child slaves and transcribes their stories, ultimately determining that the middlemen are the only ones profiting from the hopelessness of both the poor Ivoirian farmers and Malian children. This part of the book takes time to grapple with child labor and slavery and its inherent immorality in an interview with Anita Sheth of Save the Children Canada. Off and Sheth conclude that if children want to work and their parents want them to work, then they should be able to work, but only if hazards are minimized and they are paid commensurately. Off then shifts focus from the growth of the Ivoirian cocoa se
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