Ghana is the second-largest exporter of cocoa beans in the world, after Ivory Coast. [1] [2] Ghana's cocoa cultivation, however, is noted within the developing world to be one of the most modelled commodities and valuables. [3]
Ghana is the second-largest exporter of cocoa beans in the world, after Ivory Coast. [1] [2] Ghana's cocoa cultivation, however, is noted within the developing world to be one of the most modelled commodities and valuables. [3]
Cocoa production occurs in the country's forested areas: Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Central Region, Eastern Region, Western Region, and Volta, where rainfall is 1,000 to 1,500 millimetres per year. [4] [5] The crop year begins in October, when purchases of the main crop begin, with a smaller mid-crop cycle beginning in July. [6]
All cocoa, except that which is smuggled out of the country, is sold at fixed prices to the Cocoa Marketing Board. [7] Although most cocoa production is carried out by peasant farmers on plots of less than three hectares, a small number of farmers appear to dominate the trade. Some studies show that about one-fourth of all cocoa farmers receive just over half of total cocoa income. [6]
With some two million children involved in the farming of cocoa in West Africa, primarily Ghana and Ivory Coast, child slavery and trafficking were major concerns in 2018. [8] [9] However, international attempts to improve conditions for children were failing because of persistent poverty, absence of schools, increasing world cocoa demand, more intensive farming of cocoa, and continued exploitation of child labour. [8] [10]
The government shifted responsibility for crop transport to the private sector. Subsidies for production inputs (fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, and equipment) were removed, and there was a measure of privatisation of the processing sector through at least one joint venture. [11] A new payment system known as the Akuafo Check System was introduced in 1982 at the point of purchase of dried beans. Formerly, produce buying clerks had often held back cash payments, abused funds, and paid farmers with false checks. Under the Akuafo system, a farmer was given a check signed by the produce clerk and the treasurer that he could cash at a bank of his choice. [12] [13]
Plantation divestiture proceeded slowly, with only seven of fifty-two plantations sold by the end of 1990. Although Ghana was the world's largest cocoa producer in the early 1960s, by the early 1980s production had dwindled almost to the point of insignificance. The drop from an average of more than 450,000 tons per year to a low of 159,000 tons in 1983–84 has been attributed to ageing trees, widespread disease, bad weather, and low producer prices. [14] In addition, bush fires in 1983 destroyed some 60,000 hectares of cocoa farms, so that the 1983–84 crop was barely 28 per cent of the 557,000 tons recorded in 1964–65. Output then recovered to 228,000 tons in 1986–87. Revised figures show that production amounted to 301,000 tons in 1988–89, 293,000 tons in 1990–91, and 305,000 tons in 1992–93. After declining to 255,000 tons in 1993–94, the crop was projected to return to the 300,000-ton range in 1994–95. [6]
In the early 1990s, the Ghana Cocoa Board, Cocobod, continued to liberalise and to privatise cocoa marketing. The board raised prices to producers and introduced a new system providing greater incentives for private traders. In particular, Cocobod agreed to pay traders a minimum producer price as well as an additional fee to cover the buyers' operating and transportation costs and to provide some profit. Cocobod still handled overseas shipment and export of cocoa to ensure quality control. [6] [15]
In addition to instituting marketing reforms, the government also attempted to restructure cocoa production. In 1983 farmers were provided with seedlings to replace trees lost in the drought and trees more than thirty years old (about one-fourth of the total number of trees in 1984). Until the early 1990s, an estimated 40 hectares continued to be added to the total area of 800,000 hectares under cocoa production each year. [16] In addition, a major programme to upgrade existing roads and to construct 3,000 kilometres of new feeder roads was launched to ease the transportation and sale of cocoa from some of the more neglected but very fertile growing areas on the border with Ivory Coast. [17] Furthermore, the government tried to increase Ghana's productivity from 300 kilograms per hectare to compete with Southeast Asian productivity of almost 1,000 kilograms per hectare. New emphasis was placed on extension services, drought and disease research, and the use of fertilisers and insecticides. The results of these measures were to be seen in rising cocoa production from the 1990s to the present. [6]
Ghana's cocoa production grew an average of 16 per cent between 2000 and 2003. [18] Cocoa has a long production cycle, far longer than many other tropical crops, and new hybrid varieties need over five years to come into production, and a further 10 to 15 years for the tree to reach its full bearing potential. The reasons for this huge production increase are varied and in fact Ghana's cocoa yields per hectare are still low by international standards. [18] Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute identify the following as particularly important factors: [18]
This study also suggests that the most important factors in the increased proan are: [18]
This study suggests that Ghana's cocoa farmers are not making the best use of technological innovations in their production and instead their increased production is not sustainable. [18] Bringing new land under cultivation is risky, as much of the land was previously forest and after a short period and without adequate attention this land may be exhausted. Intensive use of labour has led to high increases in the cost of labour and may impact profitability, and high rainfall is only periodic. [18] Cocoa serves as a major source of living for most people in Ghana. In the rural areas, most adults are farmers and have plantation farms which provide them with an income. In recent years, the production of Cocoa in Ghana has increased tremendously due to the fact that, the government has provided the agricultural industry in Ghana with incentives which has boosted the interest of young adults to expand their farms and plant more cocoa. The world market have increased the prices of cocoa so it has served as a major source of revenue for the people in Ghana who cultivate cocoa.
Ghana Cocoa Board's experimentation with privatisation has created a hybrid system whereby despite all exports being controlled by the state, there are now around 25 private companies buying the crop in all areas of the country where it is grown. [19] After 14 years, the successes and failures of this hybrid system have been the subject of a study by researchers at the Overseas Development Institute. Competition was clearly found to have increased production levels throughout the country, yet access to credit remained one of the most important factors determining the level of competition. Farmers rarely made the most of all the available options to sell their crop (often they only made use of one). [19]
Their choice was based on the ability of a company to pay promptly in cash and thus there were only five major players on the market: PBC (formerly state-owned), Kuapa Kokoo (a hugely successful farmers-based cooperative working on fair trade principle), Adwumapa (a Ghanaian buying company), Olam and Armajaro (both foreign-owned companies, from Singapore and the UK respectively). [19] Another key determining factor is the distance of the plantation from the main market, as more remote farms more often found it easier to sell to the formerly state-owned PBC. [19]
This hybrid scheme benefits a variety of players: [19]
Researchers at the ODI therefore suggest that liberalisation has been good for producers by: [19]
Yet the question remains for policy-makers as to the benefits of the state controlling an export monopoly and its strong presence of the public sector in the internal market, whether there should be even more liberalisation, and whether it is providing the right incentives for producers to develop better (and sustainable) farming practices. [19]
In 2018, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana established the Côte d'Ivoire – Ghana Cocoa Initiative. [20]
Ghanan cocoa production stakeholders came together in 2011 to create the climate-smart cocoa (CSC) production programme. And Helps The System Of Cocoa Cultivation (7th) (C)The programme is focused around reducing the impact of climate change on the cocoa crops. One of the primary initiatives was distributing shade tree seedlings. These seedlings help to protect cocoa plants from heat and water stress, as well as improving soil quality. While the program has made some positive impact, there have also been some barriers to its success. Namely, there is a lack of secure tree tenure (clear tree rights) in Ghana which disincentives farmers from putting in the time and resources to caring for the shade trees. [21]
A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune in the US, concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in various countries of West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved.
The article provided this comment: "According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that's published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank's new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year. And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies' newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 'Best-case scenario, we're only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'" [22]
In April 2018, the Cocoa Barometer 2018 report on the $100-billion industry, said this about the child labour situation: "Not a single company or government is anywhere near reaching the sector-wide objective of the elimination of child labour, and not even near their commitments of a 70% reduction of child labour by 2020". A report later that year by New Food Economy stated that the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems implemented by the International Cocoa Initiative and its partners has been useful, but "they are currently reaching less than 20 percent of the over two million children impacted". [23]
According to the Ghana Forestry Commission, a Ghana government agency, almost 80 per cent of Ghana's forest resources were lost to illegal logging operation between 1990 and 2016. While this loss cannot be entirely attributed to cocoa production, cocoa production is a leading cause of deforestation in Ghana. Global Forest Watch (GFW), using advanced remote sensing and satellite data, estimated that there was a 60 per cent increase in primary rainforest loss from 2017 to 2018, the largest increase of any country in the world. Neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire had a 28 per cent increase, which was the second largest increase in this time period. Together, these two countries produce roughly two-thirds of the world's cocoa, and much of this forest loss is due to cocoa production, both legal and illegal. [24]
The Cocoa and Forests Initiative is an agreement reached between the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana, and more than thirty-seven major cocoa and chocolate companies. The purpose of the initiative is to end deforestation and replenish the trees and forests that have been destroyed as a result of the cocoa production in the area. Between 1988 and 2007, more than 2.3 million hectares of rainforest in Ivory Coast and Ghana were cleared for cocoa farms. The initiative was announced at the UN Climate Change Conference in November 2017. One of the central tenets of the initiative is a commitment to no further conversion of natural forests to land for cocoa production in West Africa.
In March 2019, the governments of Ivory Coast and Ghana in tandem with the cocoa companies released action plans that laid out concrete steps for ending deforestation. These steps include forest protection and restoration, sustainable cocoa production with an emphasis on the livelihood of farmers, and a system of social inclusion and community engagement. [25] The European Union in 2023 released the EU Deforestation Regulation to develop deforestation free supply chains for cocoa production. [26]
The resurgence on illegal mining activities has had detrimental effects on cocoa production. Communities such as the Dinkyiea in the Adansi North District, used to be a cocoa production hub until the arrival of the illegal miners. This has led to the loss of arable land to activities of illegal mining and deforestation. [27] The cocoa sector has lost 190,000 acres of farmlands to galamsey operations. [28] This has either happened through encroachment or through the cocoa farmers leasing out their farmlands to illegal miners mostly due to poverty or lack of governmental support and initiative to support cocoa production. [29] Other than lands, galamsey has caused the pollution of water bodies, limiting the access to portable quality water needed for farming activities. [30]
The cocoa bean, also known simply as cocoa or cacao, is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. Cacao trees are native to the Amazon rainforest. They are the basis of chocolate and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink.
The Harkin–Engel Protocol, sometimes referred to as the Cocoa Protocol, is an international agreement aimed at ending the worst forms of child labor and forced labor in the production of cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate. The protocol was negotiated by U.S. Senator Tom Harkin and U.S. Representative Eliot Engel in response to a documentary and multiple articles in 2000 and 2001 reporting widespread child slavery and child trafficking in the production of cocoa. The protocol was signed in September 2001. Joint Statements in 2001, 2005 and 2008 and a Joint Declaration in 2010 extended the commitment to address the problem.
Child labour is a recurring issue in cocoa production. Ivory Coast and Ghana, together produce nearly 60% of the world's cocoa each year. During the 2018/19 cocoa-growing season, research commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago in these two countries and found that 1.48 million children are engaged in hazardous work on cocoa farms including working with sharp tools and agricultural chemicals and carrying heavy loads. That number of children is significant, representing 43 percent of all children living in agricultural households in cocoa growing areas. During the same period cocoa production in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana increased 62 percent while the prevalence of child labour in cocoa production among all agricultural households increased 14 percentage points. Attention on this subject has focused on West Africa, which collectively supplies 69% of the world's cocoa, and Côte d'Ivoire, supplying 35%, in particular.
UTZ, formerly called UTZ Certified, is a program and a label for sustainable farming. The organization was founded as a non-profit in the Netherlands in 2002. The UTZ label is featured on more than 10,000 product packages in over 116 countries. In 2014, UTZ was reported to be the largest program for sustainable farming of coffee and cocoa in the world. The UTZ program addresses agricultural practices, social and living conditions, farm management, and the environment. In January 2018, UTZ officially merged with the Rainforest Alliance in response to the increasing challenges of deforestation, climate change, systemic poverty, and social inequity.
Olam International is an agri-business company, operating in 60 countries and supplying food and industrial raw materials to over 20,900 customers worldwide, placing them among the world's largest suppliers of cocoa beans, coffee, cotton and rice. Its value chain includes farming, origination, processing and distribution operations, child labor, and allegedly even child slavery.
Agriculture in Ghana consists of a variety of agricultural products and is an established economic sector, providing employment on a formal and informal basis. It is represented by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Ghana produces a variety of crops in various climatic zones which range from dry savanna to wet forest which run in east–west bands across Ghana. Agricultural crops, including yams, grains, cocoa, oil palms, kola nuts, and timber, form the base of agriculture in Ghana's economy. In 2013 agriculture employed 53.6% of the total labor force in Ghana.
Agriculture was the foundation of the economy in Ivory Coast and its main source of growth. In 1987 the agricultural sector contributed 35 percent of the country's GDP and 66 percent of its export revenues, provided employment for about two-thirds of the national work force, and generated substantial revenues despite the drop in coffee and cocoa prices. From 1965 to 1980, agricultural GDP grew by an average 4.6 percent per year. Growth of agricultural GDP from coffee, cocoa, and timber production, which totaled nearly 50 percent of Ivory Coast's export revenues, averaged 7 percent a year from 1965 to 1980.
Ivory Coast leads the world in production and export of the cocoa beans used in the manufacture of chocolate, as of 2024 producing 45% of the world’s cocoa.
This article addresses various criticisms of Cargill Inc, a privately held agribusiness multinational giant with operations in 70 countries and its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States. Cargill Inc has been owned by the Cargill family for 154 years. It is the largest privately-owned corporation in the United States, with an annual revenue of $113.5 billion in 2019.
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is a Ghanaian government-controlled institution that fixes the buying price for cocoa in Ghana. Farmers are protected from the volatile prices on the world market through the price-fixing. Besides, the higher quality hybrid seeds are sold by the organization and some research on cocoa plant-related diseases are also carried out.
The Dark Side of Chocolate is a 2010 documentary film about the exploitation and slavetrading of African children to harvest chocolate still occurring nearly ten years after the cocoa industry pledged to end it.
The environmental impact of cocoa production includes deforestation, soil contamination, and herbicide resistance. The majority of cocoa farms are now located in Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Fair trade cocoa is an agricultural product harvested from a cocoa tree using a certified process which is followed by cocoa farmers, buyers, and chocolate manufacturers, and is designed to create sustainable incomes for farmers and their families. Companies that use fair trade certified cocoa to create products can advertise that they are contributing to social, economic, and environmental sustainability in agriculture.
Mondelez International, Inc., styled as Mondelēz International, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding, beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26.5 billion and operates in approximately 160 countries. It ranked No. 108 in the 2021 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
The World Cocoa Foundation is a non-profit membership organization with more than 90 member companies striving to make the cocoa supply chain more sustainable. WCF and its members are criticized for doing too little to end child labor, deforestation and extreme poverty, with their efforts dismissed as greenwashing and “a remarkable failure”. WCF's membership includes chocolate manufacturers such as Mondelez International, Nestlé, The Hershey Company and Mars, Inc. cocoa producers and suppliers such as Barry Callebaut and Cargill, shipping companies and ports and retailers such as Starbucks.
The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) is a Geneva-based nonprofit funded by major chocolate makers that focuses on addressing child labour in cocoa production in West Africa. ICI works with communities, farmers, unions, the cocoa and chocolate industry, civil society and national governments in cocoa-producing countries to improve the lives of children involved in cocoa production. The secretariat of the International Cocoa Initiative is in Geneva, Switzerland. The organisation has two national offices in Abidjan and Accra.
Crime in Cote d'Ivoire is prevalent and versatile across the West African country. The most common forms of crime include child labour, arms trafficking, terrorism and human rights abuse. Other less common, but still evident types of crime include cannabis and synthetic drug trade, sex trafficking, fauna and flora crimes, cybercrime.
Regenerative cacao is defined as cacao that is produced on a farm that employs regenerative agriculture and agroforestry methods. It is most closely associated with the Ecuadorian chocolate company To’ak, the organic food supplier Navitas, the rainforest conservation organization TMA, and the social-agricultural enterprise Terra Genesis. Cacao is the raw material that is used to produce chocolate.
The Côte d'Ivoire–Ghana Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI) is an intergovernmental organisation of cocoa-producing countries. It was founded in 2018 by its two eponymous member countries, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, to jointly influence global cocoa prices and the chocolate market. Its proclaimed goal is to increase the revenues of cocoa farmers in its member countries in a sustainable manner. Critics have described the organisation as a "cocoa cartel" and nicknamed it "COPEC", a reference to the oil cartel OPEC.
Cocoa smuggling is the illegal transportation of cocoa beans across an international border, in contravention of local laws and regulations. It is particularly an issue in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the world's largest and second largest cocoa producers, respectively. Cocoa prices are fixed and guaranteed in the two countries by their respective regulatory bodies, the Ivorian Coffee and Cocoa Board (CCC) and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD). Cocoa farmers who smuggle their crop therefore do so in hopes of fetching higher market prices in countries where cocoa prices are not regulated. The destination countries of cocoa smuggled from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are Guinea, Liberia, and Togo.
{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)For a decade and a half, the big chocolate makers have promised to end child labor in their industry—and have spent tens of millions of dollars in the effort. But as of the latest estimate, 2.1 million West African children still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa. What will it take to fix the problem
In 2001, companies including Mars, Ferrero, the Hershey Company, Kraft Foods, and Nestlé expressed their collective commitment to combat child labor in cocoa growing communities in West Africa through their support of the Harkin-Engel Protocol, an international agreement aimed at reducing the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa sector in Ivory Coast and Ghana by 70 percent by 2020.
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