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The cocoa bean or simply cocoa, also called cacao, is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. Cocoa beans native to the Amazon rainforest are the basis of chocolate, and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is a non-profit scientific research organization that conducts research on the use and management of forests with a focus on tropical forests in developing countries. CIFOR, which merged with World Agroforestry on Jan. 1, 2019, is the forestry and agroforestry research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a network of 15 research centers around the world that focus on agricultural research for sustainable development, working closely with governments and other partners to help develop evidence-based solutions to problems related to sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.
The Great Green Wall or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is a project adopted by the African Union in 2007, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara desert, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel from Djibouti, Djibouti to Dakar, Senegal. The original dimensions of the "wall" were to be 15 km wide and 7,775 km long, but the program expanded to encompass nations in both northern and western Africa. The concept evolved into promoting water harvesting techniques, greenery protection and improving indigenous land use techniques, aimed at creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa. Later it adopted the view that desert boundaries change based on rainfall variations.
Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) is a low-cost, sustainable land restoration technique used to combat poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers in developing countries by increasing food and timber production, and resilience to climate extremes. It involves the systematic regeneration and management of trees and shrubs from tree stumps, roots and seeds. FMNR was developed by the Australian agricultural economist Tony Rinaudo in the 1980s in West Africa. The background and development are described in Rinaudo's book The Forest Underground.
Olam International is a major food and agri-business company, operating in 60 countries and supplying food and industrial raw materials to over 20,900 customers worldwide. Its value chain includes farming, origination, processing and distribution operations.
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.
Ivory Coast leads the world in production and export of the cocoa beans used in the manufacture of chocolate, as of 2012, supplying 38% of cocoa produced in the world. West Africa collectively supplies two thirds of the world's cocoa crop, with Ivory Coast leading production at 1.8 million tonnes as of 2017, and nearby Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo producing additional 1.55 million tonnes. Ivory Coast overtook Ghana as the world's leading producer of cocoa beans in 1978, and today is highly dependent on the crop, which accounts for 40% of national export income. The primary non-African competitor of Ivory Coast is Indonesia, which went from having almost nonexistent domestic cocoa industry in the 1970s to becoming one of the largest producers in the market by the early 2000s. According to the UN FAO, Indonesia overtook Ghana and became the second-largest producer worldwide in 2006. Large chocolate producers such as Cadbury, Hershey's, and Nestle buy Ivorian cocoa futures and options through Euronext whereby world prices are set.
The International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR) is an independent intergovernmental organization established in 1997 to develop and promote innovative solutions to poverty and environmental sustainability using bamboo and rattan.
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 Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable palm oil products through global standards and multistakeholder governance. The seat of the association is in Zurich, Switzerland, while the secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur, with a satellite office in Jakarta. RSPO currently has 5,650 members from 94 countries.
Tree Aid is an international development non-governmental organisation which focuses on working with people in the Sahel region in Africa to tackle poverty and the effects of climate change by growing trees, improving people's incomes, and restoring and protecting land. It is a registered charity in the UK. Tree Aid has offices in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in Mali, in Ethiopia, in Ghana, and in Bristol, United Kingdom. It currently has programmes running in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Niger. Areas of Tree Aid's work include forest governance, natural resource management, food security and nutrition, and enterprise development. Tree Aid reported in their annual impact report 2019/20, that since 1987 it had grown 22 million trees, worked with 1.8 million people, and supported 36,350 people in enterprise groups.
The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) is a global consortium of development institutions that work collaboratively to advance sustainability learning with systematic and science-based measurement. COSA applies a pragmatic and collective approach for using scientific methods to develop indicators, tools, and technologies to measure the distinct social, environmental, and economic impacts and are applied in performance monitoring, evaluation, return on investment (ROI) calculation, and impact assessment. COSA has a public mission to open its scientific methods and metrics up to widespread use.
Ghana'sMinistry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) is the government agency responsible for the development and growth of agriculture in the country. The jurisdiction does not cover the cocoa, coffee, or forestry sectors. The primary organisation and main area of the presidential administration of Ghana is the nation's Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), which is in charge of creating and carrying out policies and plans for the agricultural sector within the framework of an efficient national socio-economic development and prosperity agenda. The Ministry's plans and programmes are created, coordinated, and put into effect using frameworks for policy and strategy using a sector-wide approach. The Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy II and the Medium Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan were both developed with the aid of MOFA in relation to this.
The environmental impact of cocoa production includes deforestation, soil contamination, and herbicide resistance. The majority of cocoa farms are now located in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.
Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is an environmental conflict of international importance. Most of the deforestation takes place in the Congo Basin, which holds the second largest rainforest of the world after the Amazon. Roughly fifty percent of the remaining rainforest in the Congo Basin lies within the boundaries of the DRC.
Cocoa is the chief agricultural export of Ghana and Ghana's main cash crop. Ghana is the second largest cocoa exporter in the world, after Ivory Coast. Ghana's cocoa cultivation, however, is noted within the developing world to be one of the most modelled commodities and valuables.
The World Cocoa Foundation is a non-profit membership organization with almost 100 member companies, including chocolate manufacturers like Nestlé, The Hershey Company and Mars, Inc. cocoa producers and suppliers such as Barry Callebaut, Olam International and Cargill, shipping companies and ports and retailers such as Starbucks. The World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) represents 80% of the global corporate market. Members are private companies from the chocolate industry. The WCF's charter is broadly stated as energizing public-private partnerships to achieve cocoa sustainability and faces challenges such as child labour in cocoa production, cocoa farming-related deforestation and extreme poverty impacting many of the West African cocoa smallholder farmers.
Climate change in Ghana is impacting the people in Ghana in several ways as the country sits at the intersection of three hydro-climatic zones. Changes in rainfall, weather conditions and sea-level rise will affect the salinity of coastal waters. This is expected to negatively affect both farming and fisheries.
The Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa (PENHA) is an international non-governmental organisation, founded in 1989 by professionals and development workers from the Horn of Africa to address pastoral and agro-pastoral development from a regional perspective and provide cross-learning at a global level. With headquarters in London, PENHA has established country offices in Ethiopia and Somaliland, with close organisational partnerships in Eritrea, Sudan and Uganda.
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.
References
- ↑ "Approach". Tropenbos International. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ "Where we work". Tropenbos International. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ "Tropenbos International". DEVEX.
- ↑ "A Self-Taught Artist Paints The Rain Forest By Memory". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ Sanchez, Casey. "Abel Rodríguez: Keeper of the rain forest". Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ ""The arts are the raw material for imagining the future."". news.ufl.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ Agency, Ghana News. "Stakeholders collaborate to address deforestation and boost cocoa production | News Ghana". newsghana.com.gh/. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
- ↑ Dogbevi, Emmanuel (2017-11-24). "More Ghanaians depend on charcoal for energy – Research". Ghana Business News. Retrieved 2021-07-13.