06 Feb 2017 --- The future of cocoa farming currently looks bleak and requires intervention from industry in order to protect the long term future of cocoa and chocolate. 60% of cocoa farmers in West Africa are living in extreme poverty. As a direct result of cocoa farmer poverty, it is estimated that more than 2 million children are working on cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana alone. Deforestation is one of the biggest causes of global warming and threatening the ecosystem that provides chocolate ingredients.