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New partnership strives to improve cocoa farming in Ivory Coast

Conseil du Cafe-Cacao and IDH’s Sustainable Trade Initiative launch a new programme, Cocoaperation, to support cocoa farming and improve the livelihoods of cocoa producers.

Conseil du Cafe-Cacao, the agency responsible for regulating, stabilising and developing the Coffee-Cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast, and IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, an arm of the finance fund for smallholder farmers, IDH Farmfit Fund, aim to increase the income of 100,000 Ivorian cocoa farmers.

“The greatest challenge faced by cocoa farmers today is earning a living income,” says Mbengone Ayivi, senior programme manager of Cocoaperation. “Today, only around 8% of cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire earn a living income,” Ayivi adds.

According to IDH, Côte d’Ivoire is the largest cocoa producer worldwide with almost one million smallholder cocoa farmers working there. A quarter of the Ivorian population directly or indirectly relies on the cocoa industry for their income and their livelihood.

Reducing the living income gap by 2025

Before setting up Cocoaperation, Conseil du Cafe-Cacao and IDH’s Sustainable Trade Initiative worked together on a Farm and Cooperative Investment Program (FCIP) designed to promote the growing number of professional cooperatives and entrepreneur-farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. The duo jointly financed and coordinated the four-year programme from 2017 to 2021.

“The aim of FCIP was to promote the emergence of bankable professional cooperatives and bankable entrepreneur-farmers in Côte d'Ivoire,” Ayivi says. While Ayivi confirms the programme showed experiences under the FCIP have demonstrated that cocoa cooperatives and cocoa farming families are bankable, they believe that more needs to be done as there is high demand for credit and other financial services.

Examples of these financial services include insurance, mobile wallet and savings accounts. Attaining financial support is a key element for farming families and their cooperatives to upgrade their business practices and livelihoods.

Following the programme and learning about the ongoing need for support and change to ensure cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire earn more, the pair created Cocoaperation. The programme’s overall objective is to ensure a minimum of 100,000 cocoa farming households in different production regions throughout Cote d’Ivoire will have lowered the average living income gap from more than 50% to less than 30% by the end of 2025.

Increasing living income

Today, only around 8% of cocoa farmers earn a living income. “Price volatility on the world markets has put farm gate prices under pressure, making it difficult for farmers to find a way out of poverty under the current production and marketing systems,” says Ayivi.

In addition, the spread of the cocoa swollen shoot virus, the ageing of cocoa trees and climate change also have negative repercussions on crop yields. “Poor management of their incomes and lack of income diversification also contribute to poor results,” Ayivi adds.

The industry requires clear action to overcome current barriers. Solutions need to focus on providing cocoa farmers with information and guidance on the services that support their work and enabling cocoa farmers around the world to earn a living income.

“Better access to financial and marketing services is key to overcoming the challenges and finding sustainable solutions for profitable and resilient farming activities,” says Ayivi.

The roadmap from today to 2025

Conseil du Café-Cacao and IDH will encourage and help cocoa traders, chocolate manufacturers and financial institutions to work together and align their activities. They will hold quarterly platform meetings and stakeholders of the cocoa sector have understood that the platform is there to share insight and experience on smart mix income solutions to benefit the whole value chain. “This is exactly what brings them together and has the potential of creating new pathways for farmers to get out of poverty,” Ayivi adds.

In addition, €2.5 million ($2.5 m) in IDH co-funding for new developments and scaling will fund cocoa farming improvements. The IDH Farmfit Fund will also help lending organisations in Côte d’Ivoire to decrease the costs and risks involved in providing credit to the cocoa farming sector.

The partners have started working towards achieving their goal of increasing the incomes of at least 100,000 cocoa producers before the end of 2025. Initiatives will focus on improving access to financial services such as credit portfolio expansion and financial education. They will also centre on providing technical assistance, which will operate as a co-funding tool for new developments, pilots and system improvements for the cocoa cooperatives and farmers.

Calls for proposals have already been initiated and circulated to all the active stakeholders in the cocoa sector.