Cocoa is one of the world’s most savoured products, mainly in the form of chocolate. Chocolate is something we all love – we reach for it in times of celebration and joy, stress and sadness, and just to sweeten our day. This simple pleasure, though, has complex and harsh consequences for those who produce cocoa.
Cocoa
Why? Securing Cocoa's Future
Chocolate. It melts in your mouth, and can be sweet or bitter on the tongue. Chocolate is an affordable luxury enjoyed all over the world. However, while in recent years, consumers have received a two cent discount on a bar of chocolate, farmers have been pushed to desperation. Since September 2016, the price of cocoa per tonne has fallen from an average of $3000 to $2000. In addition, local forests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have been transformed into cocoa plantations to increase production.
Farm
The journey from bean to chocolate bar begins on the farm. Worldwide, over 4 million metric tonnes of cocoa are produced annually, with Ivory Coast and Ghana accounting for over half of the world’s total output. Many farmers work on small plots of land, with farmers from the Ivory Coast producing cocoa on 1-3 hectares plots.
Cocoa beans are harvested by hand-picking mature pods from cocoa trees. The pods, which can contain as many as 50 beans, are then carefully opened. The beans are removed from the pulp and left in piles covered by banana leaves to be heated by the sun. They are dried, bagged, and then shipped to manufacturers.
Factory
Between 400-600 cocoa beans are needed to make 1 kilogram of chocolate. During the manufacturing process the cocoa beans are transformed into the chocolate bar. At the factory, beans undergo cleaning, roasting, grinding, moulding, and other processes. Depending on the type of chocolate desired—white, dark, or milk— different ingredients are blended.
Dark chocolate, which is enjoying increasingly larger shares of the chocolate market, is made by mixing sugar, cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, and occasionally vanilla. Chocolate manufacturers often have their own special chocolate blends, further offering variations on basic chocolate production formulas.
Supermarket
After production, beans and chocolate are stored and shipped to stores all over the world. Ivory Coast and Ghana may be the world’s largest producers, but the largest cocoa bean importers are the Netherlands and the United States, followed by Germany, Malaysia, Belgium, and France.
The majority of cocoa produced by farmers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana finds its way onto grocery store shelves in the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia, and Japan. 45% of all chocolate is purchased here, while another 27% is broken off in smaller grocery stores, making chocolate a regular part of diets around the globe.
Challenges Damage to people and the environment
The global demand for cocoa is rising. Yet the majority of the world’s cocoa producers are stuck in a cycle of poverty, unable to meet personal needs and global demand.
People
Breaking the poverty cycle
Smallholders produce 95% of all cocoa, usually on plots between 1-3 hectares. Many of these smallholders live in West Africa, which produces 70% of the world’s cocoa. Millions of farmers depend on cocoa to make a living, only to be faced with unproductive fields, being unable to turn their product into sustenance.
The smallholders and producer organisations involved in cocoa production suffer from a lack of knowledge when it comes to agricultural practices. Producers cannot easily access training, inputs, markets, or financing. This leads to either a complete lack of inputs or a misuse of what inputs can be obtained. This results in low, poor quality yields.
Women, working alongside children and other family members, must often complete household duties in addition to working in the fields. Men generally occupy the highest paying jobs, which are also the most physically demanding, with women facing this wage and occupational discrimination. Although it is not uncommon for women who head households in West Africa to grow cocoa, they are often left out of farmer cooperatives and organisations.
In places like Ghana, where low yields are acute, after experiencing growing up poor and seeing their parents struggle to make ends meet, youth are increasingly choosing not to take up cocoa farming. Given all the human costs of cocoa production, the next generation is leaving cocoa production in great numbers and opting to grow more profitable crops or move to the city.
Environment
Cycles of destruction
Cocoa is produced in some of the world’s most vibrant environments that flourish with biodiversity. One of the strengths of cocoa is that it can actually help conserve this biodiversity, provided it’s produced sustainably. But it’s often not.
In the quest to satiate our hunger for chocolate and other cocoa products, forests are cleared to make room for cocoa farms, reducing the biodiversity of the very ecosystems farms depend on to survive. A reduction in biodiversity lowers the amount of nutrients in the soil, which in turn reduces yields. The result of this is usually more deforestation to gain access to more fertile soil.
Contributing towards climate change is another effect of current cocoa production practices. Often forests are cleared in Central Africa to make way for agricultural production. This affects the climate of West Africa because the Central African forests incubate the weather systems that cover West Africa with rain. When there is less rain, there is less cocoa because rainfall is the most important climatic factor in cocoa production.
Track record Towards cocoa's future
2019
In 2019, through our bean-to-bar partnership with Case Lasevicius, three tonness of the cocoa were sold at an average price of 25 Brazilian reals (5 euros) per kg, generating a gross income of 75,000 reals (15,000 euros) for eight producers in the project. In Nicaragua, Solidaridad worked with BICU University to develop the first agroforestry cocoa diploma, giving priority participation to women and youth, while n Honduras, members of the national network of women in cocoa and chocolate learned to process and market cocoa products, leading to the launch of several women-led enterprises.
In West Africa, we helped establish the first roundtable to secure favourable land tenure arrangements for cocoa farmers in Ghana, and supported 1,600 youth to establish 789 hectares of cocoa farms. Through Ghana’s COCOBOD, lessons were shared with rural service centres to drive service delivery by small and growing businesses, and in Liberia and Sierra Leone, we contributed to national cocoa platforms as well as policy and regulatory arrangements for the sector.
2018
Across our cocoa programmes, we helped improve farmer-level productivity. For example, in Liberia, farmers planted 382,000 hybrid cocoa seedlings on newly established farms translating to 45,000 hectares of land. In Cote d’Ivoire, we supported the set up of 393 Village Savings and Loans Associations with a membership of 8,150 (94% women). The aim is to empower women, develop a savings culture and facilitate access to affordable finance for women cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire.
Solidaridad took significant steps for the cocoa sector in 2017, especially in West Africa. It engaged public and private organizations to secure co-funding to upscale activities, enable new businesses and enhance environmental governance. Solidaridad also designed a climate-smart business case for cocoa producers and enhanced multi-stakeholder platforms in order to promote landscape governance and influence public and private policies to reduce deforestation.
2016
Solidaridad focused on supporting innovations that placed women and youth at the heart of business development. Programmes included giving tailor-made entrepreneurship and life-skills training, modeling viable business opportunities to prove profitability and making the case for impact investment. Activities were aimed at supporting the development of a thriving professionalized cocoa sector for the future. Solidaridad took concrete steps to support climate-smart cocoa production through the development and testing of low carbon balance tools.
2015
Solidaridad aims to address the problem of low youth participation in the cocoa supply chain by combining business and life skills training for young entrepreneurs so they can maintain thriving cocoa farms and businesses.
2014
For the Love of Chocolate, a multimedia exhibition in The National Maritime Museum Amsterdam, attracted 35,000 visitors and major attention from the press. Nico Roozen spoke at the World Cocoa Conference 2014 and shared the message that certification alone is not enough.
2013
The ‘For the Love of Chocolate’ documentary with the National Geographic Channel boosted awareness of Solidaridad’s cocoa programme.
Solidaridad and Cargill commissioned external impact assessments in Ghana and Ivory Coast. An external impact assessment by KPMG indicated the following results from the start of the CIP programme: 151,000 farmers trained and certified, producing over 414,000 tonnes of certified cocoa, and sharp increase of both public and private investments in cocoa.
2013
Together with the Dutch Embassy in Ghana, Solidaridad West Africa and partners developed the 'Cocoa Rehabilitation and Intensification Programme (CORIP) – Ghana'. Privately run Rural Service Centres (RSCs) will be set up providing training, information, inputs and other technical support for improved cocoa production.
2012
Solidaridad cocoa programme investments climbed to 3.5 million EUR.
2011
Post-election civil war in Ivory Coast posed a major setback for the cocoa sector and the Solidaridad cocoa programme. In Ghana and Nigeria, Solidaridad organised national stakeholder forums including farmers, business, and government representatives.
2010
‘For the Love of Chocolate’ campaign with Mars Nederland began. Annual programme investments exceeded 1 million EUR, Solidaridad’s Farmer Support Programme reached 40,000 farmers; and Solidaridad also set up training teams in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ecuador, and Brazil.
2009
The Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation welcomed the first UTZ Certified cocoa at the Amsterdam cocoa harbour. Mars was the first big company to announce their intention to use 100% certified cocoa by 2020.
2008
Solidaridad's joint Cocoa Improvement Program (CIP) 2008-2012 began to scale up the production of sustainable cocoa in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brasil, Peru, Indonesia and Vietnam and Peru. Private sector partners, amongst others, included: Cargill, ECOM, Mars, Nestlé, Ahold, Heinz, Oxfam Novib, and WWF.
2007
Solidaridad initiated its cocoa programme, focused on mainstreaming sustainable cocoa.
Solution We bring people together
We believe in a market transformation approach that works simultaneously with farmers, markets, consumers and governments – where one cannot make progress without the other. We bring all supply chain actors together to secure the future of cocoa farming.
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Farmers
Since the start of our programme in 2007, significant progress has been made at the farmer level. However more needs to be done to make a real difference; many farmers still don’t see a future in cocoa farming.
Farmers with knowledge and skills – and access to credit and fertiliser – are three times as productive as their colleagues. This is not only good for farmers; it means that companies can also rely on a steady supply of good cocoa.
The cocoa sector contributes to the living and working conditions of farmers, farm workers and their families. Training farmers has resulted in a 28% increase in income in Ivory Coast and a 13% increase in Ghana. This has resulted in increased household security, with more money being spent on food, clothing, and education. Farmers in our programmes are organised, skilled and entrepreneurial. High yielding cocoa production systems enhance ecosystem services and improve local food security.
Female farmers have also benefitted from our programmes. In Ivory Coast, self-help groups where 600 women were trained on safe pesticide use, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation use, and malaria prevention were organised. 30 women have also begun their own cocoa nurseries, selling 130,000 seedlings to achieve financial independence.
"I am a member of the cooperative and learned in training programmes. As a result, my yields are high, I have more income and I'm teaching other farmers now."
Enan Abblé Cocoa farmer Kragui, Ivorycoast
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Engaging businesses and goverments
Companies and governments are an integral part of sustainability in the cocoa industry. These entities can assist in increasing access, availability and affordability of inputs, knowledge and credit for sustainable cocoa.
For years, governments, companies and Solidaridad have been investing in improving cocoa production. Thanks to public-private cooperation, about 20% of the 2.5 million cocoa farmers in West Africa now receive support with training and access to support.
Our Cocoa Improvement Programme has resulted in around 151,000 farmers being UTZ certified from 2008-2012. Here, as in all of our programmes, certification was used as a tool towards sustainability in combination with knowledge and local capacity building.
In Ghana, a programme driven by a public-private platform, and financed by the Dutch government, focuses on new delivery models. These Rural Service Delivery Centers centre on training, inputs and credit with a special emphasis on rehabilitation and intensification, all of which are necessary for long-term sustainability.
We also seek to involve industry participants in innovative ways. From 2013-2014, we ran a multimedia exhibit, ‘For the Love of Chocolate’, that shows the cocoa production process and how it can be improved.
This is how we help cocoa become sustainable.
Join us Support our work
Growing cocoa can give millions of farmers in West Africa and elsewhere the prospect of a better future without poverty. This will only be possible if farmers, companies, governments and development organisations cooperate and invest more in sustainable cocoa production. Support the work done by Solidaridad and make a difference for the love of cocoa.
PartnerRelated News
The need for transparency and accountability in global supply chains
In December, the US Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Nestle USA and Cargill should be held responsible for child labor on the West African farms from which they buy their cocoa. Across many different supply chains, large, multinational companies are often unable to answer questions about their last mile suppliers and producers.
How does poverty taste? Chocolatey.
To mark the launch of the 2020 Cocoa Barometer on the first of December, Solidaridad’s Isaac Gyamfi & Heske Verburg write about the need to change gear in the cocoa industry.
Cocoa Barometer 2020
The Cocoa Barometer zooms in on the state of sustainability in the global cocoa sector, outlining the current challenges in cocoa (child labour, deforestation, poverty), as well as the necessary changes to tackle their root causes. The Cocoa Barometer is published biennially by a global consortium of civil society organizations, including Solidaridad, and coordinated by the VOICE Network.
NORC report on child labour in West Africa: more accurate figures, but no farmers business case
After three years of research and an investment of 3 million dollars, the long-awaited report of the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the University of Chicago has been published. It has already sparked vigorous debate.
Hope for smallholder farmers amid a pandemic
The Alternative Livelihood and Empowerment Programme (ALEP) by Solidaridad, which runs alongside its cocoa and oil palm programmes, has served as a lifeline for smallholder farmers to stabilize their food stock and generate additional income during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in Liberia.
Improving Youth Livelihoods in the Ghana Cocoa Belt
The Next Generation Youth in Cocoa Programme (MASO) conducted a study to evaluate how the programme has contributed to improving economic outcomes for youth participants, along with other changes in agricultural practices, income and poverty levels, and access to land and finance.
