The True Price of Cocoa

Climate change and disease are two factors that affect the lower production and higher price of cocoa worldwide. Agroforestry and individual solutions for cocoa farmers are solutions active in West Africa.

Chocolate is a favourite among many, leaving its main ingredient, cocoa, in high demand. However, with climate change, disease and several other factors, the cocoa supply is decreasing.

Across West Africa, Christophe Kouamé, Country Director, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), and his colleagues at CIFOR work closely with cocoa farmers to find solutions for individual cocoa farms. The solutions should cover not only resilience but also production. A fruit tree, for instance, can be used for resilience and home consumption and be commercialized. To find the best solutions, they start by assessing the status of individual farms. One of the ways of assessing is to look at the depletion of organic matter in soil:

“We have set up a lab for soil analysis that allows us to support the farmers by knowing what the soil needs before making our recommendations”, says Christophe Kouamé.

An agroforestry system can reduce the impact of disease. A tree can slow down the impact of an insect, or the insect can lose its ability to transmit the disease. However, many challenges remain. The increased price on an international market does not correlate to an increase for the farmer.

If you want to learn more about cocoa farmers, join the poster session “Gender dimensions to climate resilience of cocoa farming systems in West Africa”. Thursday Poster session 1. Download poster.

Listen to Christophe telling us more about the challenges with cocoa and the solutions they work with.