Cadbury launches campaign to promote Fairtrade Cocoa

Accra, Oct. 16, GNA - Cadbury has launched a campaign using Ghanaian traditional culture to raise additional funds for cocoa growing communities. The campaign is a promotion for the track Zingolo and features Ghanaian musical artist Tinny, as well as the Ghana-based dance troupe High Spirits.

The Zingolo single is available on iTunes, with proceeds going to CARE, which funds education in Ghana's cocoa growing communities. The move follows the recent certification of Cadbury Dairy Milk across the UK and Ireland and builds on the work of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, a 10-year initiative launched in 2008.

The company is investing A345 million in securing the economic social and environmental sustainability of cocoa farmers in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean.

Ghana is benefiting from the partnership to the tune of A330 million with over 100 communities working to identify their development needs such as the construction of new school buildings or forming cocoa youth clubs to encourage the next generation to appreciate agriculture, particularly cocoa farming.

The project is also engaging extension officers to undertake traini= ng programmes for farmers and ultimately train local farmers to take on a knowledge sharing role in their communities and in the Ghana Wells Projec= t, which has to date built 911 wells in Ghana - with 46 new wells inaugurate= d this year. Mr. James Boateng, Managing Director of Cadbury Ghana, said the comp= any was working to further strengthen its relationship with Ghana and key stakeholders to ensure that the partnership guaranteed cultivation of coc= oa on sustainable basis.

In this direction, Cadbury will increase four-fold the production of= Fairtrade Cocoa in Ghana from the current level of 5,000 to 20,000 tonnes= in 2010.

He pledged the company's support to the partnership and hoped it wou= ld improve the living standards of the farmers and communities as well as consumers of chocolate and Cadbury. "We are all interdependent on each other, and sustainable cocoa farm= ing is at the centre of it all," he added.