Cote d'Ivoire: Cocoa and Change
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Cote d'Ivoire: Cocoa and Change
Cote d'Ivoire is the world leading cocoa producer, and being a country that exists in developing nation it experiences economic hardships that likely impact on its economic activities. The country was a French colony, and its urbanization has been due to the export of its commercial products and migration of people from rural areas to more developed towns. The video presents the country as a nation that has economic capacity if its resources that are well explored. However, the fact that the country experiences political instability disorients its progress economically. This brings view of the topic of the sides, describing its cocoa production and changes the country has experienced.
Cote d'Ivoire has culturally diverse population, and this is relational to the continual unrest and political instability experienced in the country. Other than political instability, the economic crisis that the country experience is linkable to the reduction in the price of cocoa as a commodity, currency weakness and lack of proper infrastructure. A state that has civic pressure is unlikely to progress its course in developing its platforms to achieve stable economies. Other than that, the fact that the country lacks proper infrastructure and its inability to modify its products to meet global shifts devalues its products.
From the video, it is evident that the country has capacities for resources and the climate, which supports its activities. The economic activities, political shifts, and agricultural practices evidently shape the landscape of Cote d'Ivoire with plantations being established in the climates that support the crops. The country has a climate that supports cocoa growth as the rain forest has areas with a hot, humid climate that favors the plantation of coffee and maturity of the plant. The part of the video that caught my attention was the country’s over-reliance on a single commodity depicted in Yamoussoukro.
Being that urban areas of the country arose because of demand to fill the labor gap, there have been activities that have modified the environments. It is very tragic that a country that relies on coffee export has no infrastructure or mechanism in place to process the coffee beans and export a product. It is clear that the insurgency in the urban area would offer opportunities to develop infrastructure to sustain the demands that exist within the areas. People continue to clear forests to expand the plantations to support the labor available. However, this practice has a long-term effect on climate of the region that in the end may not support coffee plants as before.
The aspect of the video I found most interesting is the rate of urban growth on a yearly basis. The video relates the influx in urban areas to expansion of the plantations experienced and dilution of the industry. With the increase in labor capacity within the fields of the cocoa farm, it is evident that the industry will no longer be able to absorb the increasing availability of labor. The urban areas that spur due to the cocoa plantations present a shift that in the country and influence of agricultural practice to the country and its people. The video helped the topic come real as establishment of the towns due to cocoa plantation and clearing of the rain forests to support farms depicted change that has been caused by the commodity. The city of nippy and city of Abidjan presented both the positives and negativities of the issues that have risen over the years from the time of economic stability to the current state of instability in the country.