Chocolate production linked to increased deforestation in poor nations.

Chocolate production linked to increased deforestation in poor nations.Newly published research focuses on the link between cocoa exports and deforestation in developing nations. Every year, more than five million family farms in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Indonesia and Brazil produce about four and a half million tons of cocoa beans, according the World Cocoa Foundation. Ghana and the Ivory Coast supply more than 70 percent of the world's cocoa. Cocoa, much like coffee, is an export product consumed almost entirely in developed nations such as the United States. Yet the beans, which are used to make chocolate, are almost exclusively grown in less-developed nations such as West Africa, Asia, and Central and South America -- countries that on average have extremely small demand for the product they depend on for their livelihoods. There are a number of social, economic and environmental inequalities that arise in the production of this luxury crop. Evidence of human trafficking and child slave labor have been found in the supply chain, according to a 2010 investigation