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 the exploitation of the weakest, in 2019, HALBA and the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Union Limited (KKFU) launched the Sankofa project together with other partners, which will enter its third project phase (2026–2029) in 2026. Sankofa is funded and supported by Coop and HALBA, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) through the landscape programme of the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Fairtrade Finland, Fairtrade Max Havelaar Switzerland, and coordinated by International Trade Centre (ITC). The project is being carried out by Fairtrade Africa (FTA), KKFU, the ITC and Nature & Development Foundation (NDF). The project receives technical support from Ecotop Suisse GmbH and the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG).
The Sankofa project supports the sustainable cultivation of cocoa through dynamic agroforestry (DAF) and combines this with CO₂e sequestration. New marketing channels are being established for products from mixed cultivation, such as yams, which are grown alongside cocoa. This creates additional sources of income. Furthermore, since 2020, a reference price has been paid for cocoa to contribute a living income for 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 supports the partner cooperative in digitally transforming its processes, developing strategies and enhancing profitability. The cooperative also receives assistance 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.
