Cocoa from the conservation zone is purchased by some of the world s 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.
Chocolate farmers are moving into protected areas of a forest reserve in Nigeria, harvesting its cocoa for some of the world’s largest suppliers. But choc…
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.