Achieving sustainable cultivation of cocoa

Umaharan, Pathmanathan

doi:10.1201/9781351114547

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…These include old trees, pests and diseases, which lower tree productivity [2][3][4]; low farmer and worker profits and incomes [5][6][7][8]; persistent poor labour conditions; the use of child and forced labour [9,10]; negative environmental impacts, such as deforestation, soil degradation, and soil and water pollution [11]; coupled with political instability in many of the origin countries [12][13][14][15]. These wicked problems have proved difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing views on how sustainability has been defined in the cocoa sector [16]. Small-scale farmers continue to dominate cocoa production, particularly in West Africa, where they produced an estimated 73% of total production in 2015 [17].…”

Section: Wicked Problems Converge On Cocoa Farmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impacts of Cocoa Sustainability Initiatives in West Africa

et al. 2018

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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.

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Section: Wicked Problems Converge On Cocoa Farmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impacts of Cocoa Sustainability Initiatives in West Africa

et al. 2018

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“…The word cacao has been reported to surge from the Olmec and Mayan word kakaw, and then adopted by the Aztec Nahuatl language with the word cacahuatl (Dillinger et al, 2000;Nair, 2010). Cacao trees grow in tropical lowland rain forests within latitudes approximately of 20 N and 20 S of the Equator (Bartley, 2005;Motamayor et al, 2008;Umaharan, 2018), with temperatures in between 18 C and 32 C. Ideal rainfall ranges from 1500 mm/year and 2500 mm/year with an optimum humidity close to 70%e80% during the day, and 90% e100% during the night. The pH of the soil for adequate growth must be between 5.0 and 7.5.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%