Orphans Flee Farms, Crops Rot, No Cocoa (Ebola Update)

With their parents dead of Ebola, orphans are fleeing their family farms and abandoning them because they can't take care of them. Hopefully, they will be able to take care of themselves, but it's hard to see how they might in the middle of the worst Ebola epidemic on record.

We can live without cocoa and chocolate, but they need their rice and peanut staples. Our hearts go out to the orphans, and to all the dead and dying in West Africa.

CROPS ROT AS EBOLA ORPHANS FLEE SIERRA LEONE FARMS

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The deadliest outbreak of Ebola on record is forcing farmers and their families to flee cocoa, rice and peanut plantations in northeastern Sierra Leone, where agriculture makes up more than half of the nation's economy.

Output of the chocolate-making ingredient will drop this year and peanuts and rice, a staple, will be left unharvested....

"Ebola has left with us with a high number of orphans who cannot take care of themselves and family plantations," Brima Kendor, a plantation owner and spokesman for the local chief in Kissi Tongi, Kailahun district, said in an interview. "This is the time to rehabilitate the cocoa farms but we can't do that now."

Abandoned farms threaten to curb economic growth in a country struggling to rebuild after a 10-year civil war that ended in 2002 and left the nation's infrastructure in ruins. Agriculture makes up about 57 percent of the $4.9 billion economy, according 2011 World Bank data, the most recent figures available. The virus will probably spread for four more months in West Africa, where more than 600 people have died since the fever was reported in March in Guinea, according to the World Health Organization.

a reply to: soficrow
Why do they think the virus will continue to spread for "four more months"?
Is that just in West Africa?

If the orphans lost their parents to Ebola - what is it about the orphans, that they were not infected?

originally posted by: WanDash
a reply to: soficrow
Why do they think the virus will continue to spread for "four more months"?
Is that just in West Africa?

It's code for "It's not over yet" and "we don't really know what the heck is going to happen 'cuz this one is really different." ...So far, there's no real reason to believe the virus will spread off the African continent - unless it travels (in a host) to another heavily populated area with bad healthcare.

If the orphans lost their parents to Ebola - what is it about the orphans, that they were not infected?

I doubt anyone can confirm they were not infected - they're gone. Maybe they're on a list for contact tracing. Or maybe not. The situation is ...chaotic.

It is a shame that in this day and age people can still be wiped out from diseases like that. My heart goes out to those poor people and what they must endure.

I heartily agree, but cocoa is produced in many places other than the countries of West Africa and nobody will be going without.

600 people dead from ebola and the people who've endured everything else crumble? I know people have a breaking point but something doesn't add up.

a reply to: BasementWarriorKryptonite

Yeah. It's complicated. Too many strikes and workers making demands - nurses, miners, farmers, child slaves, you name it. But an Ebola epidemic is a great opportunity to play the chaos for more cover-ups.

Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry

Chocolate is a product of the cacao bean, which grows primarily in the tropical climates of Western Africa, Asia, and Latin America.[1] The cacao bean is more commonly referred to as cocoa, so that is the term that will be used throughout this article. Western African countries, mostly Ghana and the Ivory Coast,[2] supply more than 70% of the world’s cocoa.[1] The cocoa they grow and harvest is sold to a majority of chocolate companies, including the largest in the world.[3]

In recent years, a handful of organizations and journalists have exposed the widespread use of child labor, and in some cases slavery, on cocoa farms in Western Africa.[4][5] Since then, the industry has become increasingly secretive, making it difficult for reporters to not only access farms where human rights violations still occur, but to then disseminate this information to the public. In 2004, the Ivorian First Lady’s entourage allegedly kidnapped and killed a journalist reporting on government corruption in its profitable cocoa industry.[6] In 2010, Ivorian government authorities detained three newspaper journalists after they published an article exposing government corruption in the cocoa sector.[7] The farms of Western Africa supply cocoa to international giants such as Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestlé—revealing the industry’s direct connection to the worst forms of child labor, human trafficking, and slavery.[8]

The Worst Forms of Child Labor

In Western Africa, cocoa is a commodity crop grown primarily for export; 60% of the Ivory Coast’s export revenue comes from its cocoa.[9] As the chocolate industry has grown over the years, so has the demand for cheap cocoa. On average, cocoa farmers earn less than $2 per day, an income below the poverty line.[10] As a result, they often resort to the use of child labor to keep their prices competitive.[11]

The children of Western Africa are surrounded by intense poverty, and most begin working at a young age to help support their families.[12] Some children end up on the cocoa farms because they need work and traffickers tell them that the job pays well.[8] Other children are “sold” to traffickers or farm owners by their own relatives, who are unaware of the dangerous work environment and the lack of any provisions for an education.[13] Often, traffickers abduct the young children from small villages in neighboring African countries, such as Burkina Faso and Mali,[8] two of the poorest countries in the world.[14] Once they have been taken to the cocoa farms, the children may not see their families for years, if ever.

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originally posted by: BasementWarriorKryptonite
I heartily agree, but cocoa is produced in many places other than the countries of West Africa and nobody will be going without.

600 people dead from ebola and the people who've endured everything else crumble? I know people have a breaking point but something doesn't add up.

I think the numbers are much higher but unless people go to doctor and are tested, they don't know. Also, there maybe many that haven't been confirmed yet. Also, I think officials may be downplaying the actual severity of this outbreak because it's much worse than any they have ever seen. This may be a real game changer.

a reply to: Rezlooper

That's so right and I never thought of any of that. I'm amazed any real news gets filtered to us at all, aside from the fact that is us it's happening to.


I love your avatar pic

originally posted by: Night Star
It is a shame that in this day and age people can still be wiped out from diseases like that. My heart goes out to those poor people and what they must endure.

Especially when its actually MURDER in my books, what I believe firmly, no doubt in my mind at all, by the cartel and trilateral commission folks, which makes me very very upset, for I want to have the power now, to bring them to justice.
Sick of this, they need to be exposed and forced to confess, even if they need truth serum and microchips themselves to do it and never ever be out of high security prisons for the rest of their lives.

These folk were murdered, as so many others are around the world and in every nation.

And I 'm sick of it.

When I think of the kind of wonderful world we could have with no forced slavery, homes and land and gardens, art and music and culture, beauty and clean technology and empowerment, for all, every single person on this planet, with wonderful healthy non GMO foods, and cruelty free and then this horrendous suffering and horror story at the hands of the most vile beings in the cosmos and no body stops it, they simply go on as usual, even supplying the money and means to do it, just blows me away. Can't sleep at night and have this as my focus and cry every single day of my life. What a joke.

SOS, time to come in and arrest them. SOS time to come in and arrest them. SOS time to come in arrest them. Constant litany.

Ebola, depopulation weapon! Murder One!