Verina Ingram, Yuca Waarts, Fedes van Rijn, Tinka Koster & Birgit de Vos 14 November 2017 International Symposium on Cocoa Research. Promoting Advances in Research to Enhance the Profitability of Cocoa Farming 13 – 17 November 2017 – Lima, Peru

1. Impacts of cocoa sustainability
initiatives in West Africa
Verina Ingram, Yuca Waarts, Fedes van Rijn, Tinka Koster & Birgit de Vos
14 November 2017
Promoting Advances in Research to Enhance the Profitability of Cocoa Farming
13 – 17 November 2017 – Lima, Peru

2. What are cocoa sustainability initiatives?
2
Initiatives which seek to:
 End poverty & hunger
 Improve health, education, water &
sanitation
 Reduce inequalities
 Increase decent work & economic
growth
 Combat climate change, responsible
consumption & production
 Protect & restore terrestrial ecosystems
 Reverse degradation & biodiversity loss
(Salmon 2002, Mcwilliams and Siegel 2001, (Ingram, Luskova et al. 2016)

3. Questions
Which sustainability initiatives used in West
African cocoa sector?
What has been their impact on farmers, did
they work as planned?
3

4. Methods
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 Literature review
 Theories of Change (UTZ Certified, traders, partners)
 Difference-in-difference approach
 15 environmental, economic & social outcome based indicators
 Stakeholder interviews:
 Secondary data
 Qualitative & quantitative analysis
 Verification meetings
Country Ghana Ivory Coast Total
Year / Interviews 2012 2015 2013 2017
Certified farmers 385 352 725 450 1912
No cooperatives 6 6 97 50* 159
Uncertified farmers 127 117 55 50 349
No cooperatives 2 2 6 6 16
Farm labourers - 161 - - 161
Coop. managers 5 5 7 7 24
Focus groups 8 10 14 32
Traders 5 5 7 6 23
Support organisations 2 2 4 4 12
School teachers - - 8 - 8
Farm measurements - - 99 - 99
Total 532 658 1018 587 2795

5. 5

6. Cocoa sustainability initiatives West Africa
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Platforms, networks and associations
• Private, public, research, CSO, NGOs
• Sustainability goals + declared policy/programme/ plan
Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS)
• B2B & B2C
• Owned by government, NGO or business
• Product declarations /independent certified, governance &
verification
CSR initiatives
• Self-regulation
• Compliance with laws, standards, (int)national norms.
• Social good, beyond firm interests or legal requirements
NGO and CSO campaigns
• Inform, raise awareness and/or lobby
• Advocate behavioural change or regulation

7. Growth of sustainability initiatives
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2010 2015200520001995199019851980
Timeline

8. VSS
Platforms
Corporate
NGO/CSO campaigns

9. Scaling up Voluntary sustainably standards
9
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
sold produced sold produced sold produced sold produced
UTZ RA Fairtrade total
Cocoatons1000
2016
2012
2011
2008
Source: Fountain and Hutz-Adams 2015
Scaling up of certified cocoa production and sales globally 2008 to 2016

10. Proliferation of initiatives
10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Network,
association
and platform
initiatives
Voluntary
standards
schemes
Corporate
sustainability
initiative
Partnerships Government
initiatives
NGO initiatives
Numberofinitiatives
Cocoa sustainability initiatives Ivory Coast 2008 to 2016
WCF, ICCO,
CAOBISCO,
ECA, UNDP, ILO
UTZ, RA,
Fairtrade,
Organic, ISO
Cargill, ADM,
BC, Outspan,
Ecom, CEMOI ,
Mara, Nestle,
Kraft, mondelez,
Hershy, Nestle
CPQP, ICI
CAADP, EFA,,
STCP, , CISCI...
PRODEMIR,
PCCM,
CORIP, IDH,
CdIQCCP,
ANADER
Behind the
brands, CIP,
Child labour

11. Growth in service “packages”
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 p
Ivory Coast
• Up to 10 services offered
• 5+ offered together

12. Sustainability initiatives in the West
African cocoa sector
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 CSO/NGOs campaigns focus attention
 VSS + CSR packages extensively scaled up by traders
 Combined with government & network initiatives
 ‘One size fits all’ service packages: offered to all
farmers in a group, or ‘self-selecting’ farmers
 Despite 5 clusters * of farmers with clear profiles
• Age
• Farm size
• Income
• Farm ownership
• Costs
• Agro-ecological zone location
• Certification status
• Good Agricultural Practice adoption *meaningful differences in cocoa production (van Rijn, Kuit et al. 2015)

13. Impacts of sustainability interventions in
West African cocoa sector
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Farmers’ incomes, cocoa productivity, farmer’s and farm
worker’s living and working conditions, GAP and
environmental effects mixed and generally negligible to
modest - compared over time and to non-certified
farmers in similar agro-ecological regions.
Certified farmers had higher satisfaction levels, better
working conditions, knowledge levels and
implementation of GAPs - but room for improvement.
Certification promoted producer organisations,
providing a range of social benefits, access to inputs and
services.

14. Ghana
14Waarts, Ingram, Linderhof, Puister-Jansen, van Rijn and Aryeetey (2015)
+ Significant positive correlation between indicators, - Significant negative correlation between indicators,
0 No significant correlation between indicators

15. Ivory Coast
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(Ingram, Waarts, Ge, van Vugt, Puister-Jansen, Ruf and Tanoh (2014)
+ Significant positive correlation between indicators, - Significant negative correlation between indicators,
0 No significant correlation between indicators

16. Implications.....
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Certification plus service packages: difficult to entangle
attribution and causality
Multiple interventions need to be aligned and targeted
Stagnation of uptake as low hanging fruit plucked and
costs increase
Robust evidence of impact still required to support
credibility (what is working, where, when, how, and why),
continued investments and cost/benefit distributions
Time to engage more with policy makers and regulators
Other instruments needed? Fiscal, monetary, nudging,
legislative....

17. More information
https://www.wur.nl/en/Dossiers/file/Cocoa.htm
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