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Authors:

S. Muilerman IITAM. Lundy CIATC. Bunn CIATG. SchrothConsultantL. JassogneIITAP. LäderachCIATN. A. AnyidohoUniversity of GhanaP. van AstenIITAR. AsareIITAH. KirschtIITA

Contact email:s.muilerman@cgiar.org

Climate-smart cocoa production: engaging with farmers and their supply chains in Ghana

Global demand for cocoa has increased 2-3% annually, especially from Asia. The cocoa industry is challenged to produce an additional million tons required over the next years. The historic growth model for cocoa, especially in the Upper Guinea Rainforest, was largely based on successive waves of migrant farmers moving West into virgin forests. Through this practice of growth at persistent low yields (a 50-75% yield gap), cocoa cultivation has been a key driver of deforestation. With under 15% of the original forest remaining in West Africa, the migratory model is defunct.

Ghanaian cocoa farmers exhausted available forest lands through a century of migration. Today a change to sustainable intensification practices is needed, with the aim to double or triple yields. However, new cocoa suitabability predictions indicate that farming strategies will also need to become climate-smart. We engage with the value chain operators in a novel public-private platform to mainstream climate-smart cocoa practices and develop investment opportunities for the sector and for future generations of cocoa farmers.

An inclusive scaling approach

Fig 2: Distribution of impact - suitability for cocoa by 2050 (Bunn et al., work in progress)

In Ghana cocoa ran out of forest

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Fig 1: Most of West African cocoa is grown by migrant farmers. The Western Region, Ghana’s final cocoa frontier, shows the most diverse migrant population in cocoa communities(Muilerman, 2013)

Fig 3: Climate-smart innovation in R4D feeds into an innovative approach for private-public scaling (Lundy et al, unpublished)

Relevant climate smart practices will need to be disseminated using appropriate vehicles to reach scale, e.g. by linking with existing training programs and impact investors to reach producers and their organizations. However, with the average cocoa farmer being 50 years of age, adapting for the future will also require the sector to make smallholder cocoa farming more attractive and accessible for younger farmers with strong climate smart business models. An ongoing study shows an imminent breach with customary (matrilineal) inheritance and land tenure practices, allowing for more inter/intra-generational farming strategies. This would allow youth to invest in cocoa up to 20 years earlier and take climate change in account (e.g. by registering ownership of valuable trees. Half of the parents would allow this on their lands). It seems contradictory, but though few parents aspire for their children work on cocoa farms, 9 out of 10 hope they carry on the cocoa legacy and engage in cocoa business. Climate change threatens the current production zones negatively

impacting production. Current scenarios about the effect of climate change on Agro-Ecological-Zones reveal which regions will be less affected or become more suitable, and which need adaptation or even need a transition to other cropping systems. In order to further enhance these predictions factors like quality of soils and other constraints still need to be integrated in the models.

Future changes in cocoa suitability

Sustainable, profitable and climate-smart intensification is required, not only to benefit the global industry, but especially to benefit the livelihoods of smallholder producers. Recommendations to improve productivity through full-sun or low-shade intensified practices may demand too much resources and increase cocoa farmers’ vulnerability to climate change.

Successfully raising productivity is realistic and has been achieved particularly in Ghana’s last cocoa frontier, Western Region. Through vast government input subsidy and distribution schemes Ghana showed it is possible to better balance economic growth and forest conservation. In 2001-2011 average cocoa fertilizer use in our study benchmark area in the Bia district of Western Region increased from 6 kg to 163 kg/ha and yield increased from 188 kg to 535 kg/ha, nearly tripling output per hectare. Availability and access to inputs however is insufficient to prepare farmers for climate change. Climate-smart cocoa initiatives (i.e. adaptation and mitigation oriented) will not only need to look at farming systems (incl. crop diversification to buffer farmers against market, policy and environmental risks), but will also need to take on an integrated value chain approach. Proposed solutions will need to be adopted at scale, based on real-world incentives and resonate with a diverse group of stakeholders.

Doing more with less land

Engaging with future cocoa entrepreneurs

To confront all these challenges our inclusive approach unites stakeholders throughout the value chain and marries existing value chain interventions focused on changing farmer practices and the provision of innovative financial vehicles with climate science. Our approach tests new methods for identifying and scaling site specific and appropriate climate-smart practices, assessed against the risks of exposure on a climate change gradient, which are then mainstreamed into voluntary certification schemes and linked to impact investment in producer organizations.

No changeAdaption neededCrop change likelyNovel area

Impact of climate change by 2050Changes in agro-ecological zones for cocoa

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