Cocoa from Ghana: gain knowledge, share knowledge.

Ghanaian cocoa farmers face major challenges: strongly fluctuating and sometimes low cocoa prices, ageing cocoa trees, declining soil fertility, a lack of expertise, a lack of technology and resources for sustainable growing methods, and changing climate conditions. The results are low incomes and, in many cases, child labour. Clearing to open up new, fertile farmland has led to one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. To counteract further clearing and exploitation of the weakest, in 2019 HALBA and the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative launched the Sankofa project with Coop, the International Trade Center (ITC), Fairtrade Max Havelaar, Fairtrade Africa, WWF Switzerland and other partners, successfully completing it in 2022. The project was funded by HALBA, Coop, the ITC, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and Fairtrade Max Havelaar Switzerland. 

«Sankofa» supports the sustainable cultivation of cocoa through dynamic agroforestry (DAF) and combines this with CO₂e offsetting measures. In addition, since 2020 a reference price to ensure a living income has been paid to farmers involved in the project. The project also seeks to strengthen the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative and enable it to take ownership of the project in the long term. HALBA further supports the partner cooperative in its commitment to fighting child labour and supporting women. In 2022, an additional project was launched with the aim of implementing a functioning monitoring system for child and forced labour in 40 growing communities in the region from which HALBA sources its cocoa by 2026.

• 504 farmers are cultivating their land under DAF conditions, totalling 378.5 hectares.
• 524 farmers receive a reference price for 552 tonnes of cocoa beans, securing a living income and increasing their earnings from cocoa sales by around 20 per cent. 
• 2 562 farmers diversify their crops over 355 hectares by using food agroforestry systems (FAS), i.e. they use growing techniques that counteract climate change and make the plants more resilient to negative climate factors.
• Kuapa Kokoo employs 21 agricultural advisers who have received training within the scope of the project and now educate other local farmers.
• Value chains have been established with local companies for 16 products, such as yam.

Project phase 2 involving more than 3 500 farmers as well as additional financing partners such as the Finnish Foreign Ministry, Fairtrade Finland and the Dutch Trust Fund V aims to achieve the following goals by 2026:

• 380 existing farmers will expand their DAF land by 185 hectares.
• 400 new farmers will be trained in DAF, 50 hectares will be newly cultivated from scratch and 200 hectares of DAF land within existing cocoa farms will be cultivated according to the «DAF island approach». This new DAF approach reflects the desire of farmers not to have to newly cultivate some of their cocoa land from scratch, but rather simply to diversify.
• 2 562 existing and 600 new «Sankofa» farmers will diversify their income through simple agroforestry techniques, known as Food Agroforestry Systems (FAS) in food cultivation.
• The KKFU management team is receiving training relating to DAF, FAS, the duty of care, digitalisation and governance tools. 
• 75 young people are receiving intensive training in the field of sustainable cocoa cultivation and are being equipped with tools to develop their services in order to implement DAF.
• A DAF centre of excellence is being set up in order to anchor valuable know-how relating to sustainable cocoa cultivation and agricultural techniques in the region and to ensure that agricultural advisers receive solid practical and theoretical training in the usage of DAF and FAS methods.
• 1 380 farmers receive the reference price calculated by Fairtrade for 1 000 tonnes of cocoa beans, thereby ensuring a living income.