Tom Neuhaus's Blog (6)

This past December, one of the villages we visit every year was burned by members of the Ivorian Army, specifically pro-Ouattara forces.  Broguhe was pro-Gbagbo during the last election, so this is probably a form of punishment.  We (Project Hope and Fairness) are rebuilding the sewing room this week and electrifying it.  In any case, Ivory Coast, which supplies 40% of the world's cocoa, is slowly rebuilding from a civil war that started in 1993 and flashes on and off.

Tom…

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Tom Drahos of Windows on the Water and I, Tom Neuhaus, president of Project Hope and Fairness, are doing a Molecular Gastronomy demo at the SLO Botanical Garden in San Luis Obispo, Dec. 16, to benefit Project Hope and Fairness, a non-profit established to help cocoa farmers.  Last summer, we donated $4500 of tools to cocoa farmers in Ghana and Cameroon.  To learn more about the demo, see www.projecthopeandfairness.org and…

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As President of Project Hope and Fairness, I spent 3 weeks in Ghana and Cameroon this summer and distributed tools to 8 villages using money raised by the NGO.  To read about my adventures, please visit  www.sweetearthchocolates.blogspot.com.

 

I spent 10 days in Cameroon, talking to people in government and industry about building a cocoa study center near the town of Ebalowa, the…

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Friday afternoon I still had a few hours to kill. So I paid $30 for a tour company to supply me with a driver who spoke minimal English. Fortunately, Iva and Dani (president of the company that hosted my talks) came along, so communication was not an issue. We drove around in the Yogyakarta area, where there are mostly smallholders growing a variety of crops: vanilla, cloves, cocoa, rice, and bananas.…



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THURSDAY, JUNE 18



I had an entire morning ahead of me with no responsibilities! I ate an early breakfast, then visited the gifts store on the first floor. There, among other things, I found some local chocolates. I took the chocolate bars to the hotel front desk and asked them where the factory was. Within 10 minutes I was off across Yogjakarta in search of Monggo Chocolates. I found it in the old part of town, in the silver district known as Kotagede.…



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Join me on my 7th annual trip to help cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast. These two countries produce more than 55% of the world's cocoa. Their farmers are extremely poor, and their poverty makes possible the mainstream chocolate that some of us enjoy.



We will land in Accra, purchase cocoa storage bags, travel to Ebekawopa, Ghana, donate a dryness meter and 100 cocoa storage bags, measure the effectiveness of the solar cocoa drier we built last year, then travel to Ivory Coast,… Continue