Will Ghana’s Cocoa Industry Survive the Climate Onslaught?

Cocoa, the second largest foreign exchange earner for Ghana, is indeed the cash-cow of the Ghanaian economy.

But the cocoa industry, a major driver to deforestation, is reeling under the threat of climate change.

Increasing production demands expansion of area under cultivation, with the resultant effect of converting forests to farming systems which leads to decline in carbon stocks.

To sustain production, there is the call for the country to explore climate-smart cocoa production practices.

Kofi Adu Domfeh takes a look at what Ghana is doing to ensure the cocoa economy and local livelihoods are sustained.

The Paradox of Cocoa Production

A drive through Ghana’s cocoa belts, especially during the dry season, reveals a sorry sight of stretches of cocoa withering from the top as though fire had gone through the top part of farms.

Under good weather and improved farming practices, Ghana unprecedentedly produced one million metric tons of cocoa in the 2010/2011 crop year.

But production has since declined, currently hovering around 850,000 tons.

Temperature plays a critical role in Ghana’s cocoa production – whiles climate change affects agriculture, agriculture also affects climate change.

Agroforestry research scientist, Dr. Luke Anglaaere, describes cocoa production as a paradox to Ghana’s forest depletion and restoration.

“Cocoa is the crop that has led to the destruction of Ghana’s forest and it is the only crop within Ghana’s agricultural system that has the potential to help restore the forest, to bring back the forest,” he said.

The Climate Threat to the Prized Bean

Enjoyed by sweet-toothed consumers the world-over, more than half of the world’s chocolate comes from the cocoa plantations of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers supply lucrative fair-trade markets in developed countries.

But the climate threat could transform the cherished chocolate bar into a luxury few can afford.

Ghana, at the turn of the century, had 8.2million hectors of forest reserves.

The policy in forest reservation at the time was to reserve a small portion to create a good micro-climate to support cocoa production and other agricultural activities.

“The reduction in forest, alarming though it may seem, was more or less intentional,” noted Kwabena Nketia of Tropenbos International Ghana. “But with time government realized that was not the best of policies; that is allowing the areas outside the reserves to be converted fully to agriculture”.

Most ecological zones in Ghana are experiencing gradual increase in temperature, longer dry season and reduction of annual rainfall.

Mr. Nketia has observed the dwindling fortunes of cocoa production in some northern parts of the country “because the microclimate there does not support cocoa growing; so if we are not careful with the way we manage our forest resources, as we lose our forest, the environment gets drier and drier and cocoa will no longer be able to survive”.

Seven years ago, climate scientists at the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, CIAT, predicted that the expected increasing temperatures will lead to massive declines in cocoa production in Ghana and other cocoa-growing areas in West Africa by 2030.

Their report also revealed that an expected annual temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will leave the cocoa-producing areas too hot for chocolate.

Warmer conditions mean the heat-sensitive cocoa trees will struggle to get enough water during the growing season, curtailing the development of cocoa pods, containing the prized cocoa bean.

Fatal Cocoa Extension Error

With the exception of the Greater Accra region, cocoa used to be cultivated in all areas of Southern Ghana.

Farmers will clear the forests in these areas to plant their cocoa due to the soil fertility of forest lands.

Initially, some remnant trees were left to provide shade.

With the introduction of hybrid cocoa, however, farmers were advised to remove trees to engender higher yields from the hybrid.

Cocoa extension officers erred in discouraging the cultivation of hybrid cocoa under shade, said Dr. Anglaaere of the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

As an open-sun cocoa, the hybrid cocoa yields higher than when under shade. However, the variety draws heavily on soil nutrients through the export of the beans from the system.

“Within a short time, the nutrient pool within the soil gets depleted very fast and yields begin to decline,” observed Dr. Anglaaere.

Nutrient loss and sun scorch, he said, are major challenges to sustainability. With climate change, temperatures are high and the cocoa trees struggle in the heat and limited nutrients in the soil.

The open-sun system practice, therefore, requires external inputs of fertilizers and agrochemicals for the crop to journey beyond the 15-25 year life-span.

“Our cocoa is not growing healthily and yields are also beginning to suffer. So, invariably, we have to, at any cost, try to bring back shades into that system because the hybrid also does well under shade,” said the researcher.

Now, the government’s policy looks at the possibility of managing areas outside the permanent reserves on sustainable basis, including the promotion of agro-forestry and tree planting.

Farmers are now encouraged to integrate trees in their cocoa production.

Promoting a More Beneficial Shade-Loving System

Ghana has lost half of its forests since 2000, and the rate of loss is two percent per year.

Head of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund (CIF), Mafalda Duarte, during a recent visit to Ghana, reiterated the country’s risk of losing its total forest cover if the trend of forest loss continued unchecked.

The CIF has over the past decade invested $75.7 million in Ghana’s reforestation program, implemented by the Forestry Commission and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to help reverse forest degradation in reserves and off-reserves.

The Fund’s intervention is driving a paradigm shift in cocoa production from a “sun loving system” to a more beneficial “shade-loving system” for better yields, better soil, better preserved water streams and biodiversity.

“We ask the farmers to combine the cocoa trees with timber trees, high yielding economic trees. Once you have the timber trees on the farm, they will be providing a lot of shade because cocoa is a forest plant and it thrives best when it exists with other trees,” said COCOBOD Chief Executive, Joseph Boahen Aidoo.

Partnerships for Sustainable Cocoa Production

Among challenges affecting productivity levels of cocoa in West Africa are over-aged and diseased farms.

The world’s top cocoa producer, Cote d’Ivoire, which supplies two million tons of cocoa to the world market annually, is joining forces with Ghana to sustainably grow the bean.

The two leading cocoa economies are accessing a $1.2 billion investment facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to rehabilitate cocoa farms and replace forests that were razed to grow cocoa beans.

In Ghana, about 10,000 hectares of diseased cocoa trees will be cut down across the country from August 2018 as the COCOBOD kick-starts series of interventions to increase cocoa yields.

“We are also embarking on irrigation because of the climate effect…to help the farmers harvest all year round,” said Joseph Boahen Aidoo.

The drive to promote sustainable climate-smart cocoa production has been supported by not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations.

SNV Ghana, for instance, has over the years partnered the COCOBOD, the Forestry Commission and some private licensed cocoa buying companies to expose farmers to interventions in climate mitigation and adaptation for sustainable cocoa production.

“Indeed, the negative impact of climate change has become real in virtually all cocoa growing areas across the country and the results are decreasing productivity per unit size of farm,” said Charles Brefo-Nimo of SNV Ghana.

Under the SNV’s Shaded Cocoa Agroforestry Systems (SCAFS), farmers are supplied with tree seedlings to encourage afforestation for improved productivity.

“I received 1,111 cocoa hybrid seedlings, 1,111 pieces of plantain suckers and 30 pieces of economic trees for free, and this means that I have saved a lot of money to make other financial commitments,” said Yaa Ampomah, 60 year old farmer at Essam in the Bia West District of the Western region.

Putting Farmers First to Drive Smart Production

Prior to SNV’s intervention to introduce the farmers to new cocoa farm establishment model, they used to rehabilitate their unproductive farms by using cocoa beans from the disease susceptible Amazon cocoa pod without any planting design.

“Today, we are provided with technical agronomy and extensions support to do lining and pegging as well as using shade system in our farms,” said Christian Nkrumah, a 34 year old farmer from Asuopri Community.

FORIG’s Dr. Anglaaere expects that cocoa farmers would be trained and empowered to plant 15-30 trees on an acre of cocoa farm, more than the 6-7 trees recommended by the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG).

“It is just how you manage the trees that determine the level of impact that they have on the cocoa,” he said. “The type of tree species and management of the trees are important for climate smart production”.

He explained that cocoa and coffee are more shade-tolerant than other agricultural products. Therefore, the number of trees that can be put under food crops is not comparable to the number of trees that the cocoa crop can tolerate.

COCOBOD says it is implementing innovations to improve crop yield in order to boost the country’s cocoa production to one million metric tons ahead of a five-year target.

But Charles Brefo-Nimo of SNV Ghana, says the future for sustainable cocoa production in Ghana requires a multi-facet approach which should be grounded on strong public and private sector funding.

“Cocoa renovation and rehabilitation with agro-forestry system model is a critical climate change adaptation model but other innovative models such as appropriate cost effective and affordable irrigation scheme should be introduced at smallholder levels,” he said.

Prof Adei to go on a ‘one man aluta’ to halt galamsey

Outspoken Ghanaian economist, Professor Stephen Adei, have served notice he will embark on a “one man aluta” to compel the government to, as a matter of urgency, halt the growing phenomenon of illegal mining, popularly referred to as galamsey.

He says his campaign starts from January 7, 2017 when Ghana completes the process of electing a President to steer the affairs of the nation.

“Whoever wins, if they are not going to do anything about galamsey and the level of environmental degradation, you’ll see Stephen Adei on a one man aluta,” he told a gathering in Kumasi.

The 17 thousand illegal miners in the country are causing havoc with impunity “because there are ‘big’ men behind them” who have invested in big machinery for the operations.

There are also fears of an imminent depletion of forest and water resources as the miners employ all kinds of equipment to uproot trees and dig the ground deep in search of gold.

In the Western region, the Upper Wassaw Forest Reserve has hundreds of illegal miners destroying about 12 hectares of the forest reserve; trees have been razed indiscriminately, water bodies destroyed and deep pits left uncovered.

Two water treatment plants in the Ashanti region are currently producing below capacity as illegal miners encroach on lands within the catchment of the Barekese and Owabi dams.

Cocoa industry experts have also warned the spate of illegal mining activities could cutback Ghana’s cocoa production targets if immediate steps are not taken to address the menace.

Cocoa farmers at Keniago and other communities in the Amansie West District of Ashanti are already giving up on farming as illegal mining operations take over fertile lands in the area.

Prof. Stephen Adei therefore wants the menace halted immediately before illegal miners hold the country hostage.

“We have to make life uncomfortable for whoever is responsible… because the level of environmental degradation in Ghana is so much that we risk poisoning the land, animals and human beings,” he stated.

Environmental sustainability has been identified among best practices to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Unleashing the economic power of forest lands through producer organisations

 Forest and farm producers, along with representatives from governments and non-governmental organisations from 42 countries have drawn up a ‘road map’ for supporting forest producer organisations as the socially just and environmentally sustainable way of addressing global deforestation.

The plan is an outcome of a conference, aptly named ‘Strength in numbers’, which took place in Guilin, China. It gathered 150 participants from many forest-related sectors, countries and regions to discuss the role of producer organisations in sustainably managing forests and generating income at local, national and regional levels.

It was the first such meeting to focus on the important role of forest producer organisations. Governments and investors rarely recognise this role despite the fact that there are around one billion smallholders, indigenous people and local community members owning one quarter of the world’s forests and generating US$75–100 billion per year in goods and services.

"As a group, local forest producers play a major role in global trade, and yet are often overlooked when we talk about the role of the private sector in forest landscape management and restoration," says Chris Buss, Deputy Director of IUCN’s Forest and Climate Change Programme. Many of the obstacles that producers face can be overcome by forming organisations and supporting each other at a practical and political level.

Despite the differences between participants, there were many clear areas of consensus or, as FAO’s Jeffrey Campbell, Manager of the Forest and Farm Facility, concluded “there are many roads but one map” and although “forest and farm producer organisations each have unique characteristics according to country, context, stage of development, product or enterprise, size, gender of members, cultural character and so on, they face a number of common challenges as well as solutions [to these challenges].”

A statement containing recommendations for donors, governments and producer organisations themselves, was developed and agreed by participants. This will serve as the ‘road map’ for strengthening producer organisations in future, with participants taking the recommendations back with them to their own countries.

A key recommendation was that all forest producers, regardless of the size and location of their forests, should have access to the services they need to develop successful forest-based enterprises. Forest producer organisations themselves can help deliver such services through partnerships with NGOs, consultants, private companies, government agencies and development agencies.

Conference participants also called on development partners to take a long-term approach to engaging with producer organisations and governments at the national, regional and global levels, including through the Forest and Farm Facility.

Finally, the statement underlines the need for governments to implement

reforms to ensure that indigenous peoples, local communities and private smallholders have secure tenure of their forests, land and trees. Governments also need to ensure that national and subnational legal and institutional frameworks encourage the development of producer organisations.

The conference was also an opportunity for China to showcase its extraordinary tenure reform that has left 115,000 forest producer cooperatives (representing 90 million forest farmers) with more income and more forest. Roughly 70 per cent of China’s annual reforestation of 2.9 million hectares is now attributed to such groups, although recent reports from China suggest that the future of subsidies supporting this reforestation process now hang in the balance.

“What was amazing about the conference” says Duncan Macqueen, a Principal Researcher on forests at the International Institute of Environment and Development “was the clear consensus that forest and farm producer organisations are the key to forest restoration and can visibly do so at scale, as China is demonstrating.”

The ‘Forest and Farm Facility’ (FFF), which seeks to promote sustainable forest and farm management by supporting producer organizations at all levels to engage in policies and investments that meet the needs of local people, was one of the co-organisers of the event. 

LPG price hike to worsen Ghana’s depleting forest

Environmental campaigners are worried Ghanaians may be compelled to revert to the use of charcoal and firewood for energy with the hike in the price of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).

This, they say will harm efforts at protecting the country’s already depleted forest cover.

Subsidies on the price of LPG were placed as a measure to get majority of the population to shift from wood fuels to LPG with the intent of conserving the forests to help mitigate global warming.

It is not clear how much of an impact the subsidy has helped in discouraging felling of trees for fuel wood.

But Environmentalist, Lovans Owusu-Takyi says there are clear indications the hike in LPG prices would lead to an increase in deforestation.

“About 85 percent of the population depends on fuel wood for energy source and with the increase in fuel prices definitely people are going to go back to the use of charcoal and fuel wood”, he observed. “The more dependency on charcoal and fuel wood will also increase the depletion of forest resources”.

The price of LPG has gone up by 50 percent, selling at 194.85 per litre or GHS24.36 per a 12.5 kg cylinder.

Mr. Owusu-Takyi stated that Ghana is already importing timber from Cameroon and the “risk to our forest is high now, hence the need for urgent attention to be given and that the fuel price increase should be looked at again”.

Whilst urging the government to explore ways to subsidize LPG to benefit urban households, Mr. Owusu-Takyi noted access the improved and efficient cook stoves would be beneficial in reducing charcoal and firewood in both rural and urban communities.

“Improved cook stove is very good to save and reduce carbon emission, provide clean energy and improve the health of the people”, he said.

Already, producers of clean cook stoves are anticipating an increase in sales of products with the hike in prices of LPG.

“Once the price of LPG increases, definitely people will switch from the LPG and start using their charcoal. So with this efficient cook stove, it’s going to reduce the cost of their fuel consumption in terms of charcoal for their cooking so I think it’s good news for us”, said Michael Yaw Adjei, manufacturer of Holy Cook Stoves in Kumasi.

About 69 percent of urban households in Ghana use charcoal for cooking and heating.

Mr. Adjei is looking forward to expand production to meet anticipated demands.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

Frogs take longer to recover after logging African forests – new research shows

Frogs require a minimum of twenty years to recover after logging African forests and maintaining the right conditions, shows findings of a novel research. 

Young Ghanaian scientist, Gilbert Baase Adum of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), led a team of international research scientists to undertake the study, which was recently published in Conservation Biology, the world’s leading academic journal in its field.

Logging has been a prime factor to the declining amphibian populations worldwide. Until this study, it remained largely unclear how long it takes frogs to recover to their former state after logging.

“In our study of three south-western Ghanaian commercially-logged forests, it took 10 years for non-forest dependent frogs to return to their former levels, and forest-dependent frogs decreased and did not recover until after 20 years of logging”, said Gilbert.

“But low logging intensity, remnant patches of intact forests retained in the landscape, and presence of permanent streams or rivers may have aided in the rapid recovery of frogs”.

The one-year study also recorded the highest number of Ghana’s Endangered Squeaker Frog (Arthroleptis krokosua) since its discovery – 14 individual frogs were found.

The research scientists were from the KNUST (Ghana), the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), Humboldt University (Germany) and the Zoological Society of London (United Kingdom).

This project received funding from UK DEFRA through the ZSL-Wildlife Wood Project, with additional funding provided by Trobenbos Ghana, BirdLife International and the Cambridge Student Conference on Conservation Science.

The authors see hope for the future of conservation in West African forests, observing that “some portion of the surviving wildlife can apparently recover when forests are subsequently left undisturbed”.

They have therefore called for the preservation of African logged forests alongside undisturbed forests.

Over 90% of Ghana’s rainforests have been destroyed and Ghana’s frogs are rapidly disappearing.

Gilbert’s Baase Adum, who is also the Executive Director of SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana, emphasized the need for government and conservation agencies to collaborate with his NGO to protect Ghana's amphibian populations and to promote a society that respects and appreciates nature and wildlife.

The NGO has also advocated the establishment of Ghana’s sixth national park by turning the unprotected Atewa Forest Range Reserve into the Atewa Hills National Park.

The reserve has exceptionally high amphibian biodiversity and is home to an array of other wildlife species, but is under constant threat from bauxite mining and unsustainable logging.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh