Cadbury and Cocoa

While working on my literature review I looked more closely at Cadbury's website that gives basic information about its connection to cocoa cultivation in Ghana. This page states that the information is best suited to young readers, however I felt I gathered some insight from exploring the way Cadbury represents its connection with cocoa farms in Ghana to Western youth. Mainly, I noticed that under the "future" tab, the website reflects Cadbury as a moral, upstanding institution of honorable heritage. It states that Cadbury does its part to help the less fortunate cocoa farmers that provide it with the beans it needs to be such a lucrative chocolate business. For example, it has built over 850 clean water wells for rural villages. I have not yet looked more fully into the business practices of Cadbury; however, I am skeptical about its described ethicality and good-will towards the poor. For one, cocoa farming and trading to Western powers began during the British colonialism of West Africa, and today, when colonialism has apparently ended, Ghana, along with numerous countries in the developing world, remains dependent on the more rich and powerful to remain economically stable. This dependency ensures that it will never become a presiding world power itself. Also, I wonder how much more Cadbury could afford to provide compared to 850 wells, when it advertises that it employs 50,000 people - and that has got to cost a lot.

I want to be more savvy about the capitalistic methods used to influence Western thought, that I have been subconsciously vulnerable to my entire life. Large Western companies can paint themselves as heroes and philanthropists all they want - but are their intentions truly charitable? Or is the commodification of a poor country's industry or culture (as can be seen again and again on the website I provided through the link) just another subtle way of promoting dependency, and thus just a system invested mostly in the benefit of the wealthiest and most powerful Westerners? When I am actually conducting my fieldwork, I may be able to question informants about their own opinion, or observe practices that will give me further insight into these questions. Because one thing I am pretty sure about, is that living in Ghana and observing intensive labor on cocoa farms in real-time probably wont be accompanied with the same warm-fuzzies and pat-on-the-backs as that Cadbury website is full of.