This morning, Bell and I took a trip to the Rijksmuseum which was an enormous building with an overwhelming amount of art. We tried to take everything in but there just was not enough time. Some of the artists’ artwork that I enjoyed were Ruisdael, Aert van der Neer, Paul Gabriel, and Hendrick Willem. My favorite artwork was by Willem Heda because he did an incredible job painting reflections in an ultra-realistic manner. After observing these paintings, I realized how difficult it must be to paint in a way that looks close to reality, as what we see is so much more complicated than we realize.
We then attended a presentation by Joke from Tony’s Open Chain. Tony’s Open Chain is an interesting spin-off company from Tony’s Chocolonely that I did not know existed. They are a cacao bean distributer that provides ethically sourced cacao beans to many store brand chocolates in The Netherlands, Ben and Jerry’s, and, of course, Tony’s Chocolonely. Joke discussed the complex issue in the cacao bean supply chain that encouraged them to enter the market. She explained how there is an imbalance of power between the large chocolate companies like Mars, Nestle, and Hershey’s and the very small cacao farmers primarily located in Africa. The large companies influence the countries where cacao is grown to set the cacao price extremely low, not allowing for the average cacao farmer to make a living wage. This forces the farmers to overwork their children in conditions considered to be illegal child labor. She also explained that this lack of pay makes it impossible for farmers to save money and they therefore cannot invest back in their work. Therefore, they often have low yields and have to encroach on the dangerously little amount of forestland to increase the amount they are producing. In this way, the low cost of cacao, while helpful for allowing consumers to purchase cheap chocolate, harms both the farmers and their families along with the environment.
The way Tony’s Open Chain addresses this issue reminds me to the method Patagonia uses to address a similar issue in the clothing industry. Tony’s signs long term contracts with farmer co-ops so that the farmers they work with are not left behind or abandoned. They also help front many of the costs associated with operating a more ethical farm to take some of the burden off the farmers. Perhaps the most unorthodox thing Tony’s does, though, is pay higher prices for the cacao to ensure the farmers begin earning wages closer to what is considered a living wage. Her discussion made me hopeful that companies are starting to work towards a better future but also sad about how dire the situation is and how much more work needs to be done, not only in the cacao industry but many others as well. She explained how Tony’s Open Chain only addresses cacao but the supply chain is much more complex than that. There are so many other products involved in making each chocolate bar and so much work that needs to be done in each market to address problems similar to those in the cacao industry.
The talk mainly made me realize how important issues like this are to me. I realize that the tech market has a big issue with unethical sourcing of products. I hope that someday, after getting positioned in the industry, I can do something similar to Karel and work towards creating change in the market.
Today’s word of the day is tot ziens, goodbye, as it was the last day here. I am going to miss The Netherlands but I hope to come back one day, possibly even for a co-op.
