Sustainability in Cocoa Farming
combination of farm size, productivity, labour and other costs which make their situations unique, and call for tailored responses to their individual situations.” Around 40% of the world’s cocoa comes from 1.2 million smallholder farmers in Cote d’Ivoire, with the average farmer continuing to earn less than $1 a day, well below international benchmarks to cover the full cost of living (also defined as a ‘living income’). David adds: “Over the last five years the theme of ‘living income’ has grown in prominence – both among certification schemes, such as Fairtrade – and for industry actors, such as Nestlé and Mars who have each made recent pledges to further invest in solutions which drive improvements in farmer income.”
Fairtrade believes that all farmers deserve a living income, in exchange for the hard work which goes into growing the cocoa we enjoy. A living income is an income sufficient to cover the cost of sustainable production as well as everyday expenses like a nutritious diet, children’s education and healthcare. The Fairtrade Living Income benchmark for Cote d’Ivoire is $7271 a year for an 8-member household or $2.49 per person per day. Farmers will need to more than double their incomes to reach this. Fairtrade’s experience during recent years has generated three core insights in relation to considerations for improving farmer income, David says: “Firstly, no single company, trader, certification scheme or government body can support a thriving cocoa sector in isolation. Any support provided should factor in the role that different organisations, institutions and groups can play, including towards planning and cost sharing. This line of thinking should support responses for both cocoa and non-cocoa income streams, which are each needed to move farmers towards living income benchmarks. “Secondly, no two farmers are the same and therefore solutions should – as far as possible – be flexible towards individual farmer realities. In practical terms, support should factor in both pricing and non-price interventions, with farmers positioned as ‘customers’ of relevant solutions that meet their specific needs, rather than passive recipients of generic training. “Finally, efforts to improve farmer incomes should look to
affect the wider environment within which farmers operate; both on farm and off farm. For example, in looking to improve farmers’ access to finance, long term partnerships with lenders to grow their menu of lending options will be needed, in place of one-off provisions of subsidy,” he concludes.
What solutions have been presented?
Over the past 40 years prices for cocoa at large have trended down, not up. In other words: our societal discourse around fairness in chocolate - all those conferences, reports, and brand claims - has not yet shifted the paradigm. “It is the same for deforestation,” says Philipp. “But change is coming. Satellite monitoring, cellular telephones and craft chocolate makers. These are important trends that empower cocoa farmers, end-consumers and the civil society whilst increasing pressure on the dangerous business-as-usual mindsets,” he prophesies.
32 Kennedy’s Confection June 2022
Kate Clancy at Cargill says: “For us, cocoa sustainability has been a long-term journey, with many important milestones. For example, in 2012, we launched the Cargill Cocoa Promise to formalise and solidify our long-time sustainability efforts in our direct supply chain, and in this way execute on improving the lives of cocoa farmers and their communities, while securing a thriving cocoa sector for generations to come. As part of our holistic approach to sustainability, we are committed to building full transparency, traceability, and trust in our cocoa supply chains. One important aspect of this relates to making traceability the standard in our direct sourced cocoa supply chain. That is why we are committed towards 100% digital farm-to-factory traceability for all our cocoa beans in our direct sourcing network by 2030.” Kate goes on to explain how it is important to invest in technology to better support farmers and to continue to build trust through transparency with customers and consumers. “We launched and expanded CocoaWise™, our digital suite of tools – an important enabler of achieving our goal of 100% digital traceability to the farmer. We scaled up the use of digital payments in all our sourcing countries to ensure accurate and secure payments to farmers. Beyond our own supply chain, we continue to focus on leveraging accurate and secure technology for sector-wide transformation. More open-source innovation and precompetitive sharing of data are key in making this happen – initiatives such as cross-sector reporting or national farmer registration and traceability systems are examples of how technology can help drive a positive impact for all.” At an industry level, it’s important to connect the dots and provide a systematic approach for a better cocoa future. Sustainability challenges in the industry have prevailed and are highly interconnected. This underlies the need for a systemic approach across the sector. Only by driving improvements at all levels – economic, environmental and social – can structural change be achieved. Kate tells us some aspects that need to be taken into consideration: ¡ Growing consumer demand for sustainability: Consumer demand for sustainable chocolate is growing, and consumers want to know about the impact of their purchases. ¡ Digitising the cocoa chain: A digitised cocoa supply chain provides companies and their consumers with granular transparency, such as end-to-end traceability of cocoa, remote-sensing of landscapes to assess deforestation risks, and digital tracking of school enrolment and attendance to monitor potential child labor risks. In these efforts, it is crucial to ensure that the tools increase rather than reduce farmers’ autonomy. ¡ An enabling environment, global to local: Governance structures between and within companies and cocoa- producing and consuming countries are important enablers of progress in the cocoa industry. ¡ Cocoa for a living: Cocoa is an important source of employment and income for rural populations, yet too many cocoa farmers do not earn a living income. Profitability for households depends on multiple factors, such as productivity, business skills, access to resources and farm gate prices, which all need to be taken into account.
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