The unending challenges troubling the global cocoa supply chain could derail attempts at ensuring sustainable cocoa production unless efforts are coupled with the payment of a higher farm gate price for cocoa, the 2022 Cocoa Barometer has said.
The sustainability issues, such as child labour and deforestation, according to the new report are pervasive.
The wide range of problems facing families in cocoa communities also include gender inequality, malnutrition, lack of access to education, insufficient healthcare facilities and sanitation.
“Environmental issues, such as deforestation and climate change remain a growing concern,” the report further stated.
Against this background, it notes that a combination of public policies, private-sector purchasing practices, and agricultural solutions are needed.
“Without a significant increase in earnings, cocoa farmers will be burdened with the responsibility for addressing this range of issues without the means or incentives to do so. As such, environmental and social harms are likely to continue in the world’s major cocoa-producing countries – Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
“Top-down national and international government strategies aimed at increasing cocoa production to address poverty tend to support the chocolate industry while failing to address these issues.”
Additionally, the cost-of-living crisis is putting further pressure on farmers in West Africa, representative of ECAM in the south-west of Côte d’Ivoire – a cocoa cooperative, Yao Kouame Martia, corroborated this in the report.
New data and models launched with the Barometer confirm that development measures aimed at increasing productivity and diversification will be ultimately ineffective without real efforts to close the living income gap through higher farm gate prices.
Likewise, development programmes alone are incapable of reducing deforestation, the use of hazardous pesticides or entrenching the long-term adoption of good agricultural practices, the report stated.
Despite this evidence, most cocoa-purchasing companies continue to operate business as usual, supporting development programmes while refusing to directly address their purchasing practices – including pricing.
A Ghanaian cocoa farmer, Hayford Duodu, quoted in the report, said: “The one thing that affects us farmers is the pricing of cocoa beans. In fact, pricing is a disincentive to cocoa farmers”.
The Barometer, published biennially, was developed by the VOICE Network of a global consortium of civil society organisations, with the latest report launched on December 7, 2022.
The Director of the VOICE Network, Antonie Fountain, indicated that: “Raising productivity or increasing farm size will never work in isolation to address the myriad of problems in the global cocoa supply chain.
“Paying a higher price is inevitable if the living income gap is to be closed. Interventions, such as the Ivorian-Ghanaian Living Income Differential, are necessary first steps but companies need to go far beyond that to ensure the farm gate price goes up.”
The Barometer suggests that colonial-era dynamics in cocoa supply chains, which saw vast wealth extracted from cocoa-producing regions, continue to influence corporate and political attitudes to the problem, with the wealth generated in consuming countries through cocoa still dwarfing investments in development programmes.
To address this imbalance, autonomous farmer organisations, such as cooperatives, are being urged to be strengthened and supported by national and local government initiatives in producing countries.
The Barometer said for living income to become a reality for cocoa farmers, action is needed on three separate fronts: good governance policies by public bodies; good purchasing practices by the private sector; and good agricultural practices by farmers.
