Sustaining Ghana’s cocoa sector through environmentally smart agricultural practices: an assessment of the environmental impacts of cocoa production in Ghana

Abstract

The sustainability of the cocoa industry in the developing world depends heavily on the preservation of the natural environment. There is, therefore, an urgent need for more research, policies and strategies that will help address and minimize the environmental impacts of cocoa production. This study was conducted using both secondary and primary data sources. The secondary data were collected from documentary sources such as reports from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Cocoa Pests and Diseases Control Programme (CODAPEC). On the other hand, the primary data involved an interview of 15 field officers of the Ghana Cocoa Board. These field officers were purposively selected to help ascertain some of the effects of cocoa production on the environment. The study showed that the environmental impact of cocoa production manifest in the clearance of virgin forests for the expansion of cocoa farms (clearance of 117,240 hectares of forest resources between 2010 and 2015), the clearance of forest for the construction of feeder roads (3000 kilometres of new feeder roads constructed to link cocoa farms to the various marketing outlets) and pollution from the use of pesticides and insecticides. In order to address this problem, there is the need for effective and efficient environmental impact assessment system for large scale agricultural production and the construction of feeder roads to farms. Adequate measures should be put in place by the relevant regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that the mitigation measures proposed in the environmental assessment process are implemented to minimize the environmental footprint of cocoa production.

Environmental Performance of Chocolate Produced in Ghana Using Life Cycle Assessment

“…Therefore, substituting the use of inorganic fertiliser with organic fertiliser would decrease the emissions and their related impacts. Cocoa pod husk, which is generally considered as waste product after pod splitting, can also be used as organic fertiliser during cultivation [41]. Another option that could be considered is inter-cropping cocoa trees with other agroforestry crops like coconut.…”

The Political Economy of the Cocoa Value Chain in Ghana

“…A lack of available labour also partly contributed to the use of children on cocoa farms (Barrientos et al 2008). Cocoa production in Ghana is also significantly challenged by pests and diseases such as mistletoe, capsid (insect), and black pod (fungus) (Bymolt et al 2018;Kongor et al 2017), which require timely spraying to mitigate their effects on crop losses estimated to reach about 30 per cent of annual cocoa production in some cases (Takyi et al 2019). Lack of access to inputs, especially fertilisers and agro-chemicals, also affects cocoa production.…”

Farmer networks and agrobiodiversity interventions: the unintended outcomes of intended change

“…This core-periphery structure was significant in all four communities in this study. This type of centralized network structure was supported by findings in five communities a decade later; Nyantakyi-Frimpong et al (2019) showed positive and significant estimates of the 2-star parameter using ERGMs within the community networks, which suggests a centering of information ties on the most popular advisers. This is not uncommon as other work has shown that rural development programs and interventions may result in unequally distributed responsibilities and benefits, which could increase the centrality of involved individuals and potentially elevate core community members (Heß et al 2021).…”

“…Drawing a link between networks and agrobiodiversity outcomes was possible only at the ego network level within our studies and it is important to emphasize that network mechanisms for community-level outcomes may be quite different. Indeed, Nyantakyi-Frimpong et al (2019) did not find any relationship between community-level outcomes and collective network structure that would parallel those at the individual level. Using ERGMs among five whole networks, there was no indication that larger, denser, or more clustered communities would have different levels of biomass from the adoption of agroforestry than communities that were smaller or sparser, or networks that have more evenly distributed relationships among the farmers.…”