To tackle the multiple challenges facing the cocoa sector, voluntary sustainability standards and corporate initiatives, largely focusing on farm and farmer group scale, are often implemented by public–private–civil society partnerships of stakeholders further in the value chain. This paper looks at the social, economic, and environmental effects of such initiatives, based on empirical evidence from large-scale, mixed-method studies using a suite of socioeconomic, agronomic, and environmental indicators to compare the situation of UTZ certified with non-certified farmers in 2012 and 2015 in Ghana, and 2013 and 2017 in Ivory Coast. The results show that, on average, outcomes are mixed and generally modest. However, significant cocoa productivity and income increases were experienced by certified farmers receiving a full package of services. However, the type and intensity of services has changed over time, decreasing for half of the farmers, and productivity and income increases are levelling off. These findings suggest that whilst partnerships have created new governance arrangements with an increased focus on sustainable value chains, initiatives which result in a living income and optimise productivity, whilst limiting environmental impacts, require sectoral transformation, continued partnerships, plus a range of other policy instruments to address the persistent, wicked problems in cocoa production.

Certification of banana plantations is widely used as a device for protecting and improving socioeconomic conditions of wageworkers, including their incomes, working conditions and-increasingly-voice [related to labour relations and workplace representation]. However, to date, evidence about the effectiveness of certification in these domains is scarce. We collected detailed field data on (1) economic benefits for improving household income, (2) social benefits for labour practices, and (3) the voice of wageworkers focusing on identity and identification issues amongst wageworkers at Fairtrade certified banana plantations and comparable, non-certified plantations in the Dominican Republic. We used different types of regression models to identify significant relationships. Econometrical analysis of survey results complemented by field observations and outcomes from in-depth stakeholder interviews indicate that the impact of Fairtrade certification on wageworkers' economic benefits is rather limited. However, the impact on the voice of wageworkers (job satisfaction, sense of ownership, trust), is more evident. On Fairtrade certified plantations workers are more satisfied with the course of life and better represented. Thus while the additional value of Fairtrade certification on primary wages seems limited, Fairtrade has relevant positive effects on the labour force, particularly by delivering in-kind benefits, offering a sense of job-security, improving voice and enabling private savings. Benefits of (Fairtrade) certification, but also other interventions with a similar purpose, might therefore not be discerned in terms of economic benefits such as wages or basic labour conditions that are under direct control of (inter)national law, but they should be identified in terms of social benefits and improved norms of conduct for wageworker engagement.

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The impacts and contribution of UTZ certification combined with services provided by companies 2 | Wageningen Economic Research Report Ingram, V., van Rijn, F., Waarts, Y., Dekkers, M., de Vos, B., Koster, T., Tanoh R., Galo A. 2017 The user may reproduce, distribute and share this work and make derivative works from it. Material by third parties which is used in the work and which are subject to intellectual property rights may not be used without prior permission from the relevant third party. The user must attribute the work by stating the name indicated by the author or licensor but may not do this in such a way as to create the impression that the author/licensor endorses the use of the work or the work of the user. The user may not use the work for commercial purposes.Wageningen Economic Research accepts no liability for any damage resulting from the use of the results of this study or the application of the advice contained in it. List of tables and figures We are indebted particularly to farmers, cooperatives, companies and partners for their collaboration. We thank our research partner ALP for their hard work, and we gratefully acknowledge the assistance, collaboration and constructive feedback from UTZ and IDH staff in Côte d'Ivoire and the Netherlands.We sincerely hope that this report provides a relevant reference for UTZ, IDH UTZ certification alone has not led to impacts such as improving farmers' livelihoods beyond poverty levels and assuring social risk-free cocoa. One reason is that productivity and income increases are levelling off, with results suggesting that a ceiling has been reached as productivity increases for UTZ farmer plateauing while non-UTZ farmers are catching up to the levels experienced by UTZ farmers.Confirming the theory of change, pathways to impacts were largely as foreseen: well-functioning cooperatives formed a vehicle to certification, providing packages of services to members. Training and adherence to the UTZ Code of Conduct generally is associated with better crops, incomes and environmental outcomes and knowledge is applied in practice. There were also unanticipated outcomes at producer and company level and the professionalisation of farmers and cooperatives; increased intensity and broader range of services alongside certification and increased farmer satisfaction with cooperatives. There appear to be positive spill-over effects as non-UTZ farmers come into contact with certified farmers, learn and adopt similar techniques to generate higher productivity and cocoa-related income.Certification has functioned as a vehicle to which services have been attached, enabling an increased intensity and broader package of services to be provided.Recommendations:Focus on topics that matter most: target interventions to match farmers' 1.demographic, economic and farm characteristics, with tailored mixes of service packages that focus on farmers' specific needs and the most problematic practices relating to child labour, input use, shade trees and waste management.Identif...

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