Did you know October was Fair Trade Month? There’s a nice discussion of fair trade in chocolate here. Again, has anyone done an empirical study of how fair trade certification affects genetic diversity in farmers’ fields?
Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Did you know October was Fair Trade Month? There’s a nice discussion of fair trade in chocolate here. Again, has anyone done an empirical study of how fair trade certification affects genetic diversity in farmers’ fields?
Mindful of that, perhaps, the big chocolate companies have teamed up with the World Cocoa Federation to strengthen sustainability among West African cocoa farmers. The main consumer concern remains ethical practices, among them child/slave labour, but a farmer who is getting a better deal from one of his crops is probably less likely to destroy the environment. And though the article doesn’t say so, one way to improve sustainability is to increase agricultural biodiversity on the farm.