Earning a living income is a human right, including for farmers. It is also a key aspect of HALBA’s commitment to sustainability (see Living Income and Wage Policy).
Every human being has the right to a living income that supports a dignified existence. A living income covers the cost of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, children’s school education and other basic expenses. It also offers leeway for unforeseen events. While Fairtrade has given many farmers a reliable income, some of them still struggle to escape poverty. The causes include excessively small cultivation areas, a lack of diversification and low levels of productivity in the agricultural plots; this can also be due to unforeseen weather conditions. A lack of know-how and the relevant technologies, paired with high production costs and fluctuating – and sometimes low – market prices for products grown and sold under these conditions, are further factors that pose challenges for farmers.
To combat poverty, Fairtrade International, the umbrella organisation of Fairtrade Max Havelaar, has collaborated with other players and calculated country-specific reference prices for various industries. These data determine, for example, how much a tonne of cocoa needs to cost to generate a living income for a farming family.
With the «Sankofa» sustainability project, HALBA has been supporting cocoa farmers since 2019 and at the same time promoting environmental protection and income diversification in cocoa cultivation in Ghana. In addition, since October 2020 project farmers have also been receiving a premium in addition to the cocoa sale price as part of this project. Since the government-set cocoa prices in 2024 and 2025 were above the reference price for a living income, there was no official top-up for living income. Nevertheless, 823 farmers received an additional income premium for 1 144 tonnes of cocoa beans, increasing their income from cocoa sales by 8 %.
Since 2023, this premium has been paid transparently to farmers via mobile payment. The Living Income Differential (LID) will be paid with a time delay in each case so as to ensure farming families have an income during the non-harvest period too. Starting in September 2026, the reference price is 3 950 dollars per tonne of cocoa beans.
HALBA has set itself the goal of paying farmers a reference price to ensure a living income in all cocoa-producing regions. A further aim is to ensure farmers who grow critical raw materials for HALBA snack products also benefit from a higher price. This means that cashew and mango farmers in Burkina Faso have been receiving a reference price for a living income since 2025, and coconut farmers in Côte d'Ivoire since the beginning of 2026.