It is not too late to make chocolate

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OPINION

Simon Kaheru

By Simon Kaheru

You may be surprised to learn that I am a regular consumer of chocolate, but in moderate quantities for both health and financial reasons.

Good chocolate is quite expensive and if someone like me consumes it in large quantities over an extended period of time, then my annual medical discussions with the professionals tend to involve raised eyebrows and uncomfortable discussions.

I sometimes stock up on Ugandan chocolate — specifically that Moonbean chocolate made from beans that I read originated from Bundibugyo. It is pretty good chocolate, no doubt.

What surprised me about it after I discovered Moonbean was the reviews all round — especially those from specifically some American friends who stated that it was far better than the imports that occupy our supermarket shelves.

I believed them because on average I trusted that they should know more about chocolate than most of us would, since their association with it goes back generations.

This is not a joke. This week I watched a video clip where CNN’s Richard Quest, investigating in the global chocolate business, visited Cote d’Ivoire and gave some cocoa farmers their first taste of the finished product.

These farmers, fully grown adults seemingly past regular middle age, had been growing cocoa for decades but had never tasted chocolate.

It is 2024 so these conversations should not be happening under “news” banners. We have known these things for more than a century. Yet, somehow, we don’t know.

In the 1880s when the Berlin Conference took place over Africa and we got distributed around amongst European countries, cocoa from Africa was a major item of interest amongst them.

Today’s big chocolate news in the world outside of Africa and Latin America where we grow the cocoa is that chocolate prices are going to rise sharply within the next few months and possibly double.

You think it is expensive now? Yes — and the prices went up just before Easter (in those other countries where people really buy chocolate) by a few percentage points that made headlines.

It is almost a crisis and will get worse in months to come.

The amount of concern being raised globally outside of Africa and Latin America focuses on how difficult it is going to be for people in those developed countries out there to use chocolate for their usual activities — romantic gestures, celebrations and even just regular eating.

You will not be surprised, of course, to find that the articles explain in good detail what is causing this “crisis” but with less concern about the actual reasons.

About 70% of the world’s cocoa beans come from four West African countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, the first two accounting for more than 50% (some say 60%) of the world’s cocoa.

The short version of the reasons for the shortage is that the farms in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are being wiped out by illegal miners who take over plantations (Ghana), disease due to poor farm management practices going back a couple of years and climate change.

This is pretty serious; Ghana has 3.2 million farmers and Cote d’Ivoire just under 1 million. That is four million Africans whose livelihoods are at serious risk.

But the developed world is still going to buy chocolate, right? Hence the challenge to the rest of the Africans, starting with my people here.

The Internet claims that Ugandans grow cocoa in more than 20 districts, top amongst which is Bundibugyo. I can believe that because I have seen cocoa trees thriving here in Kampala, in Rubaga division, on a small garden in Lugala.

We know full well that the price of chocolate is going to go up and that those rich world citizens will buy it kama mbaya mbaya so... “what are we on?”

I went straight to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries people, represented by Charlotte Kemigyisha who politely promised to send me information that I trust she will.

Then I asked the Uganda Export Promotion Board whose executive director, Dr Elly Twineyo-Kamugisha, had a lot to say. He fully agrees that Uganda has an opportunity and will be kick-starting a campaign for more Ugandans to grow cocoa and export it.

We won’t be covering the Ghana or Cote d’Ivoire quota as soon as next year, but if we don’t understand the need to be serious about this and kick off then when will we ever produce more Moonbean-type chocolates?

Today, the main producers of chocolate are Germany, Belgium, Italy and Poland — at dollar figures in value that would just depress you when you compare them to what Africans earn growing the cocoa for chocolates they have never even tasted.

We still have a chance, as Moonbean and a few other varieties of African chocolates have shown us — it’s not too late to make chocolate.

www.skaheru.com @skaheru