RESEARCH NEEDS FOR SUSTAINABLE COCOA PRODUCTION IN GHANA

Business Perspective

In the past, cocoa farming used to be considered a profitable business and people could make a decent living. However, it appears that in recent years, the perception of cocoa farming has changed. People often inherit land and are not eager to be a cocoa farmer. Therefore, there is a need to ensure and demonstrate that cocoa farming can be  a long term profitable business when it is done sustainably.

Since cocoa farming is not perceived as a business, there is also limited willingness to invest in the farm. This poses a great challenge for project implementation, since often these projects will initiate the intervention by providing material and training, but the farmers should invest their resources in it to keep it running. This investment should increase the sustainability of the project and the sense of ownership for the farmers. They will be more determined to make it work to get a return on their investment.  However, despite the fact that they might get additional income, farmers are often not willing to invest some of this profit back into the activity that is creating it (Anon., personal communication). Therefore, there is a need to create incentives and convince farmers to invest in their farms, for example in agrochemicals, rehabilitation or additional livelihoods. The investment can come from their income, when this is sufficient, or from external credit, when they have access. Since the money that is available to invest is very limited, the farmer needs to be sure that it is invested in something that is very profitable and has a limited risk (Anon., personal communication).