Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains
Tropical forests are vanishing at an unprecedented rate due to the expansion of commodity production, while climate change is putting increasing strain on food systems. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce over half of the world’s cocoa, a multi-billion-dollar industry, yet most cocoa producers in these...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research: Food Systems |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/adf117 |
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| author | Federico Cammelli Thomas Addoah Norina Anna Furrer Prisca Kouakou Joss Lyons-White Cécile Renier William Thompson Rachael D Garrett |
| author_facet | Federico Cammelli Thomas Addoah Norina Anna Furrer Prisca Kouakou Joss Lyons-White Cécile Renier William Thompson Rachael D Garrett |
| author_sort | Federico Cammelli |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Tropical forests are vanishing at an unprecedented rate due to the expansion of commodity production, while climate change is putting increasing strain on food systems. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce over half of the world’s cocoa, a multi-billion-dollar industry, yet most cocoa producers in these two countries live below the poverty line, and economic vulnerability is further exacerbated by climate change and ongoing deforestation largely driven by cocoa expansion. Companies have recently begun implementing policies to promote forest restoration, halt deforestation, and improve farmers’ livelihoods, but there is increasing evidence that these efforts are falling short in terms of both effectiveness and equity. This perspective article argues that several critical design flaws are central to the short-comings of these company policies that are likely to be exacerbated with the new EU deforestation regulation. The first problem is that they target a sub-optimal scale, focusing largely on individual suppliers or on landscape approaches that are only partially implemented, rather than on more manageable supply shed scales. The second flaw is that they focus on tree planting and agroforestry over conservation of remaining forests. We propose that cocoa firms and importing countries embrace more transformative policy approaches that target the correct scale and ambition to tackle structural issues influencing supply chain sustainability and achieve synergies between environmental and social outcomes. First, policies must be integrated in a mitigation and conservation hierarchy, focusing on conservation, not just tree planting. Second, companies must expand their approach beyond their individual supply chains to the broader supply sheds where they source. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ee1325d3e35b4236afcd2a38a2d94171 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2976-601X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research: Food Systems |
| spelling | doaj-art-ee1325d3e35b4236afcd2a38a2d941712025-08-20T03:39:00ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research: Food Systems2976-601X2025-01-012303300110.1088/2976-601X/adf117Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chainsFederico Cammelli0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9653-9582Thomas Addoah1Norina Anna Furrer2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9190-3165Prisca Kouakou3https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3711-1578Joss Lyons-White4Cécile Renier5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8235-1183William Thompson6https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4493-3788Rachael D Garrett7https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-263XSustainable Agroecosystem Group, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich , SOL F 5 Sonneggstrasse 33, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland; Conservation and Development Lab, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Downing Place, CB2 3EN Cambridge, United KingdomConservation and Development Lab, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Downing Place, CB2 3EN Cambridge, United KingdomUniversity of Zurich , Plattenstrasse 14, 8032 Zürich, SwitzerlandConservation and Development Lab, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Downing Place, CB2 3EN Cambridge, United KingdomConservation and Development Lab, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Downing Place, CB2 3EN Cambridge, United KingdomEarth and Life Institute, ELIC, UC Louvain , Place Louis Pasteur 3/L4.03.08, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, BelgiumNature-based Solution Initiative, Department Of Biology (Mansfield Road), University of Oxford , 11a Mansfield Road, OX1 3SZ Oxford, United KingdomConservation and Development Lab, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge , Downing Place, CB2 3EN Cambridge, United KingdomTropical forests are vanishing at an unprecedented rate due to the expansion of commodity production, while climate change is putting increasing strain on food systems. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana produce over half of the world’s cocoa, a multi-billion-dollar industry, yet most cocoa producers in these two countries live below the poverty line, and economic vulnerability is further exacerbated by climate change and ongoing deforestation largely driven by cocoa expansion. Companies have recently begun implementing policies to promote forest restoration, halt deforestation, and improve farmers’ livelihoods, but there is increasing evidence that these efforts are falling short in terms of both effectiveness and equity. This perspective article argues that several critical design flaws are central to the short-comings of these company policies that are likely to be exacerbated with the new EU deforestation regulation. The first problem is that they target a sub-optimal scale, focusing largely on individual suppliers or on landscape approaches that are only partially implemented, rather than on more manageable supply shed scales. The second flaw is that they focus on tree planting and agroforestry over conservation of remaining forests. We propose that cocoa firms and importing countries embrace more transformative policy approaches that target the correct scale and ambition to tackle structural issues influencing supply chain sustainability and achieve synergies between environmental and social outcomes. First, policies must be integrated in a mitigation and conservation hierarchy, focusing on conservation, not just tree planting. Second, companies must expand their approach beyond their individual supply chains to the broader supply sheds where they source.https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/adf117cocoadeforestationagroforestrylandscape approachmitigation and conservation hierarchy |
| spellingShingle | Federico Cammelli Thomas Addoah Norina Anna Furrer Prisca Kouakou Joss Lyons-White Cécile Renier William Thompson Rachael D Garrett Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains Environmental Research: Food Systems cocoa deforestation agroforestry landscape approach mitigation and conservation hierarchy |
| title | Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| title_full | Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| title_fullStr | Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| title_full_unstemmed | Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| title_short | Scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in West Africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| title_sort | scaling out agroforestry and forest conservation in west africa requires more transformative policy interventions in cocoa supply chains |
| topic | cocoa deforestation agroforestry landscape approach mitigation and conservation hierarchy |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/adf117 |
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