21 August 2024
Proforest Cocoa Exchange Week in Ghana
Proforest Africa Office hosted colleagues from Europe and South- East Asia for the Cocoa Strategic Week in Accra. The meeting aimed to create a comprehensive cocoa workplan that will feed into our global strategy and sets clear objectives that will have positive impact on people, nature and climate. Initial discussions identified key trends in the cocoa sector, including the need to achieve decent living incomes for farmers, foster strategic partnerships, and address the critical issue of low productivity.
Ghana COCOBOD, private sector actors, and farmer representatives were invited to contribute their perspectives to the discussion. COCOBOD showcased a live demonstration of its Cocoa Management System (CMS) and the Ghana Cocoa Traceability System (GCTS). The GCTS, which now encompasses all 70 cocoa districts in Ghana, enables real-time monitoring of individual farmers, including their farm size, location, and other community details.
The team also visited Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) to engage with the Director, who highlighted critical environmental and social challenges hindering cocoa production, particularly in Ghana. Feedback from the field provided valuable insights to inform subsequent discussions about Proforest’ role within the cocoa value chain.
Proforest identified several areas for value addition, including strengthening partnerships with cocoa institutions, providing training and capacity building, documenting lessons learned and experiences, fostering stakeholder engagement through media visibility, and facilitating knowledge sharing.
The cocoa strategic document aims to achieve the following outcomes:
- Cocoa production supports sustainable livelihoods and social inclusion.
- Policies and systems contribute to positive outcomes for people.
- Regenerative agricultural practised in cocoa production.
- Deforestation and conversion of natural ecosystems avoided in expansion of cocoa in the emerging frontiers.
- Enhanced regional internal capacity on Regenerative Agriculture.
- Agroforestry models and agricultural best practices adopted.
- Stakeholders supported (government, companies etc) to meet their GHG emissions targets and other climate commitments.
The four-day cocoa strategic meeting concluded with the development of an overarching goal and three key objectives to guide our work. The worplan also outlines specific approaches for each objective to drive desired outcomes within the cocoa sector.