Research needs for sustainable cocoa production in Ghana

Research needs for sustainable cocoa production in Ghana

Ghana - 11 February, 2016

Low cocoa productivity, poor livelihoods of cocoa farmers and a negative impact on ecosystems have led to a global realisation that cocoa production should be made more sustainable. In the previous years, many new projects have been established in this field. However, the complex reality in which these projects operate, makes it difficult to get a full understanding of the issues at hand and to effectively design projects to improve the situation on the ground.

Sustainable cocoa production broadly entails three aspects: the cocoa production on the farms, the social conditions in the communities and the impact on the environment. Combining these dimensions in one landscape can bring overarching challenges due to competing claims. However, opportunities for integrated approaches can also be explored.

In the past years, projects have been established that work on different aspects of sustainable cocoa production. These projects will often use an integrated landscape approach to address their objectives in a holistic manner. However, few practical examples exist of this approach in cocoa landscapes. Therefore, many questions are unanswered or even unidentified.

A complete overview of the challenges and opportunities in cocoa production was lacking therefore an MSc research was carried out aimed to fill this gap. The resulting report describes a broad overview of research topics related to sustainable cocoa production in Ghana and was considered relevant for everyone working in this sector, including in project implementation, policy development and scientific research. The results of the research can be found in the website: Research needs for sustainable cocoa production in Ghana.