Rasheed Adedeji News Today

The European Union, the largest market for cocoa from West Africa, will begin implementing its new regulation this year on deforestation-free products that require companies selling commodities, including cocoa, to prove they have not caused deforestation – and while the spotlight has focussed on issues related to farming in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, it has emerged that neighbouring Nigeria also has a problem.

Men in dusty workwear trudge through a thicket, making their way up a hill where sprawling plantations lay tucked in a Nigerian rainforest whose trees have been hacked away to make room for cocoa bound for places like Europe and the U.S.

Brazil lawsuits allege direct relationship between meatpackers, deforesters on protected land Cattle walk along an illegally deforested area in an extractive reserve near Jaci-Parana, Rondonia state, Brazil, Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) BY FABIANO MAISONNAVE, ASSOCIATED PRESS AND RUBENS VALENTE, AGENCIA PUBLICAU pdated 6:42 AM GMT+7, December 20, 2023 AP JACI-PARANA, Brazil (AP) — Meat processing giant…

Cocoa grown illegally in a Nigerian rainforest heads to companies that supply major chocolate makers.

Men in dusty workwear trudge through a thicket, making their way up a hill where sprawling plantations lay tucked in a Nigerian rainforest whose trees have...

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Men in dusty workwear trudge through a thicket, making their way up a hill where sprawling plantations lay tucked in a Nigerian rainforest whose trees have been hacked away to make room for cocoa bound for places like Europe and the U.S. Kehinde Kumayon and his assistant clear low bushes that compete for sunlight with their cocoa trees, which have replaced the lush and dense natural foliage. Over the course of two visits and several days, The Associated Press repeatedly documented farmers harv...

Cocoa from the conservation zone is purchased by some of the worlds largest cocoa traders, according to company and trade documents and AP interviews with more than 20 farmers, five licensed buying agents and two brokers all operating within the reserve.

Cocoa from deforested parts of Omo Forest Reserve makes it into the sweets that they make, such as Snickers, M&Ms, Butterfinger and Nutella

Over the course of two visits and several days, The Associated Press repeatedly documented farmers harvesting cocoa beans where that work is banned in conservation areas of Omo Forest Reserve, a protected tropical rainforest 135 kilometers (84 miles) northeast of the coastal city of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria.