How can cocoa smallholders adapt and become more resilient to climate shocks?

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Background and research motivationThe economic history of cocoa (Theobroma cacao) supply is bound to its colonial origins (Takane, 2000, 2002; Hill, 1956, 1963) and to resource exploitation (Kotey et al., 1974; Okali, 1983; Oswald & Leonard, 1995). Despite the huge disparities along the value chain - from farm-gate prices to roasted, cracked beans in European processing plants - cocoa remains a major cash crop for many agrarian communities. The crop has contributed to major infrastructural development, and moreover provides mass employment (Malan, 2013). However, climate change threatens to undo decades of economic development and poverty alleviation (Fischer etal., 2002; O'Brien & O'Keefe, 2006; Raworth, 2007). Climate change impacts temperature, humidity, precipitation, soil quality, and agricultural pests - all to the direct detriment of the very fragile cocoa crop (Oluyole etal., 2013).The impacts of erratic rainfall and climate shocks - such as El Niño or La Niña events- are particular pronounced across the tropics, with sub-Saharan Africa being the most vulnerable region both meteorologically and in terms of lower economic development (Ahmed et al., 2009; Barrios et al., 2010; Bruckner & Ciccone, 2011). In this region, poor smallholder farmers struggle most.It is remarkable that justtwo tropical sub-Saharan African countries, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, contribute 59% of the global cocoa supply (Hutz-Adams & Fountain, 2012). When either of these countries is faced with a crisis, world supplies plummet, and the livelihoods of vast swathes of vulnerable populations - particularly the agrarian poor - are shattered.1 Such a crisis has hit Ivorian and Ghanaian cocoa farmers recently; they continue to struggle to adapt to the impacts the 2015 El Niño has had on their fields and harvests.It is also worth noting that almost 90% of the world's cocoa originates from hundreds of thousands of smallholders, each farming less than 5 hectares of land (de Lattre-Gasquet et al., 1998; Hutz-Adams & Fountain, 2012; Malan, 2013). These small-scale cocoa farmers struggle to find ways to increase their incomes and improve their livelihoods. Such cocoa producers who are already confronted with rural poverty are acutely vulnerable to climate-related shocks requiring resilient adaptation strategies.