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   Introduction: Making Chocolate from Cacao Seeds Harvesting Cacao is Hard WorkWe tend to think of chocolate making as an assembly-line process. Most people picture automated presses plopping out candies onto conveyor belts at speeds unmatched by humans. But before cacao reaches the machinery of a chocolate factory, it must first pass through the hands of a farmer. Making chocolate takes years of manual labor. Like most agricultural crops, cacao must be closely monitored by farmers. They regularly walk their fields and check for pests, molds, and diseases that can potentially wipe out a whole harvest. In addition, a farmer must spend three to five years caring for young cacao trees before they’ll produce their first yield. Cacao harvesting is done by hand. Unlike many contemporary crops, cacao can’t be harvested by machines. Each thick pod growing off the trunk and branches of the cacao tree must be plucked by hand.  Cacao farming has faced many labor issues.Because it takes lots of backbreaking work from many people to care for cacao, workers rights were often a major concern for cacao farmers. At one time, European countries even resorted to slavery as a way of supplying cheap labor for crops like cacao. Continue to Selling Cacao Can Be Risky |
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