Meet our partner CADESA, a cocoa cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire that we have partnered with since 2016.
In recent years, the cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire has encountered—and continues to grapple with—numerous sustainability challenges across environmental, economic, and social dimensions.
Amidst these challenges, our partner CADESA stands out, making a significant social and economic impact on its smallholder producers. How about their environmental impact?
In response to the growing climate change issues, CADESA and its producers have been looking for new ways to continue protecting the planet while securing their livelihoods. This includes diversifying their crops, encouraging climate-smart agricultural practices, and actively combating deforestation.
Their inspiring dual approach, combining economic and ecological incentives, exemplifies Alterfin’s goal to preserve and build healthy ecosystems, as highlighted in our new Environmental Strategy.
Over the past decades, the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire has faced a series of unfortunate events that have significantly strained the country’s ecosystems, the cocoa industry, and its farmers’ livelihoods.
During the country’s political crisis in the early 2000s, illegal cocoa plantations in protected forests increased as both locals and non-locals took advantage of the situation to claim protected lands for farming. This land mismanagement contributed significantly to the country’s rainforest deforestation, with Côte d’Ivoire losing around 25% of its primary forest by 2019.
In recent years, however, the cocoa industry has taken clear steps to strengthen its commitment to protecting the planet and reducing deforestation. By improving cocoa traceability and mitigating reputational risks, for example, it has contributed to better preserving the livelihoods of farmers.
The sector has also invested in different certification programmes, like the one from Rainforest Alliance, to help address sector-specific issues, including deforestation.
However, certifications also face limitations, including declining demand for certified cocoa in the global market since the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend is also observed in other value chains, such as organic avocados from our partner Mavuno Organics.
These factors, combined with increased unpredictable weather patterns, such as erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and rising temperatures, have led to higher cocoa prices on the global market.
As cocoa yields become less predictable due to climate change, fewer farmers can rely on consistent production levels, decreasing overall output.
Coupled with the sector’s struggle to meet new international export regulations, this imbalance between supply and growing global demand has led to skyrocketing cocoa prices.
Unfortunately, as cocoa prices rise, these increased costs do not benefit the producers and their local communities. Instead, they exacerbate the vulnerability of cocoa farmers, amplifying the challenges they already face.
Today, cocoa farmers earn, on average, a mere 6% of the retail price of a bar of chocolate—a stark reminder of the vital role Fair Trade networks play in ensuring fairer incomes for producers.
In this context, addressing CADESA's growing economic and ecological vulnerabilities is key to securing the long-term sustainability of the cooperative’s operations, its farmers’ livelihoods, and ecosystems.
Actions speak louder than words.
Alarmed by what is at stake, CADESA and its producers have taken concrete steps to tackle the heart of the problem by:
CADESA trains its farmers in climate-smart agricultural techniques, such as growing cocoa in the shade, a form of agroforestry that prevents tree cover loss and helps restore healthy ecosystems.
Today, more than 1,000 of their producers have implemented agroforestry management—like our partner FFDL— significantly boosting carbon sequestration in the region, among other positive effects.
The process known as carbon sequestration reduces greenhouse gas levels and contributes to a more sustainable environment. Healthy soil acts like a natural sponge, capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and storing it as organic material.
Growing cocoa under a canopy has additional benefits. The method enhances soil quality, increases biodiversity, provides refuge for various animals, and can contribute to developing diversification strategies.
Facilitated by CADESA, which provides a secure and fair market for all their products, producers have diversified beyond cocoa, which currently accounts for 75% of their sales, by adding cashew nuts, rubber, and coffee, contributing 25% of their revenues.
So far, over half of the 4,590 producers have embraced this diversification strategy, cultivating at least two additional crops. This provides a crucial hedge against farming's unpredictability.
Why does this matter?
Diversifying helps farmers adapt to unstable cocoa prices and, as previously mentioned, helps mitigate the growing impacts of climate change on their production. Ultimately, this strategy enhances their economic resilience and stability while empowering them to care for their environment.
Diversification and promoting shade-grown or agroforestry techniques are a good start, but more can be done to safeguard the delicate ecosystems where CADESA’s smallholder farmers live and work.
Since 2017, CADESA has used geolocation technologies to ensure its producers do not operate in protected areas.
Here’s how it works: Using earth observation tools and geospatial data, they can identify farms that might threaten the rainforest by overlaying plot data indicating the positions of cocoa farms with data on forest cover and the boundaries of protected areas.
Based on these insights, CADESA only sources cocoa from farms more than 2 km away from protected areas. This is part of broader efforts to improve cocoa traceability from farm to export.
Deforestation can be tackled with the right transparency and technology, both vital in driving change. However, its success also relies on empowering smallholder farmers by providing the necessary resources for them to shift to sustainable cocoa production.
For nine years, we have channelled the capital of our co-op members into social enterprises like CADESA, empowering smallholder farmers to thrive amidst climate challenges.
This collaboration enables CADESA and its members to preserve healthy ecosystems and prevent environmental degradation—impactful actions that align with our 4th Impact Pillar, Protecting the Planet.
They also illustrate the objectives of our new Environmental Strategy: strengthening resilience among the most vulnerable while safeguarding the ecosystems we all depend on.
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Meet our partner CADESA, a cocoa cooperative in Côte d’Ivoire that we have partnered with since 2016.
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