Towards sustainable cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire : The impacts and contribution of UTZ certification combined with services provided by companies

Abstract

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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