Authored by Andrew Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,
After years of writing about politics, I’m a pretty hardened character. I’m cynical, pessimistic, and, while I’m often disgusted, I’m seldom shocked or panicked. But what I read at the JoNova site was so terrible I’m reeling: “Price fixing kills the cocoa farm.” It turns out that, thanks to price controls in Ghana, one of the world’s primary chocolate-producing countries, chocolate farmers aren’t even bothering to plant new crops. Honestly, I feel quite ill.
I love chocolate at a level that comes close to (but I hope never crosses into) being idolatrous. It is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. Every day, I nibble at my Guittard Extra Dark Chocolate Chips, which, to my mind, are the best around: not too sweet, with a perfectly balanced fruity, vanilla undertone. Also, when the spirit moves me and the freezer isn’t too full, I make what is quite possibly the best chocolate ice cream around, using Droste Cocoa (worth every penny), along with hints of caramel and almond.
When I say I take chocolate seriously, I am not exaggerating. I consider it essential. So, when I read that socialist price-fixing policies in Ghana (as opposed to the leftists’ delusional bugaboo of anthropogenic climate change) are threatening the world’s cocoa supply…well, I’m getting ready to place a big chocolate order, that’s all I can say.
Jo Nova, one of Australia’s top real science writers (as opposed to the faux, leftist science writers), has the story:
There has been a wicked price spike in cocoa beans which the usual suspects are blaming on “climate change” as if your air conditioner was ruining cocoa crops in West Africa.
Instead African governments have fixed the price of cocoa for decades, forcing poor farmers to work for a pittance, and keeping the big profits for themselves.
Not surprisingly, even though there is a wild price spike, farmers in Ghana are leaving the industry, smuggling crops out (because they get a better price).
They didn’t plant new trees, they ran out of money for fertilizer, and didn’t try new varieties.
Their children don’t want to farm cocoa, and the yields are falling on old sickly plantations.
So, surprise, socialist government controls wrecked the industry and they are now scrambling to put the pieces back together.
Things are so desperate, the government of Ghana raised the price of cocoa by 58% last April and then raised the price of cocoa by another 45% last September, to try to reduce the smuggling.
(The government was losing too much money).
At one point last year it was estimated that a third of the national crop was lost to smugglers.
A few months after this, the farmers were hoarding their beans in expectation the government would have to give them another price rise. Just chaos for everyone.
Of course, that’s just the top note of an excellent essay that isn’t just about chocolate but, instead, uses the chocolate debacle as a springboard to discuss how socialism perverts markets, diminishing available supplies and impoverishing ordinary people. It’s worth your time to check it out.
So, next time you hear a chocolate lover bemoan the price of chocolate and, naturally, blame climate change for that situation, be sure to direct your friend to Jo Nova’s article. Your friend might learn something. Indeed, because every person has his or her truth, the one thing that matters most to him, your friend might suddenly decide that the free market is a good thing.
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