I have to admit, whenever I see tags and labels that talk about buying “Fair Trade” goods, I usually ignore them. But after watching El Cacao: The Challenge of Fair Trade, I wish I had paid attention sooner. 

This very short, yet powerful, documentary walks us through the challenges of being a cacao farmer in a rural area of Central America. The main character talks to us about his family business, his high-quality organic cacao, and gives a sense of the extreme hands-on labor involved with farming cacao. You can have big farms in countries like Africa, that use heavy machinery and chemicals to farm their cacao, or you have the small farmer that uses their hands and machetes, and examines each cacao bean one by one to make sure they are providing an excellent product. The job of the small cacao farmer is a team effort, where even the animals and insects have a role to play, to produce the most amazing cacao beans for our consumption.

In the end, after all of the intensive labor, these small farmers still face potential disease to their crops, injury, and most likely being ripped off during the selling process that is supposed to protect them. So, should we support fair trade cacao, even if it costs a little more than your average Hershey bar? Most definitely.