The European Commission is exploring bilateral agreements with the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to ensure sustainability in the cocoa sector, and in particular to tackle deforestation, farmer poverty and child labour. 

The aim of these agreements should be to ensure a transition towards sustainable cocoa production that provides farmers with a living income, while ensuring that EU cocoa consumption does not contribute to child labour and deforestation. As the EU imports most of the cocoa coming from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and many of the cocoa companies have major operations in the EU, such an agreement could be very effective. 

Thirteen European, Ghanaian and Ivorian organisations have come together to launch a discussion paper.

It outlines our vision for a new partnership agreement between the European Union and the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to tackle deforestation, poverty and social issues in the cocoa sector.It explores what an agreement should look like, how it should be negotiated, who should be involved, and how it could work with expected new EU laws to address imported deforestation and human rights abuses.  

We developed the paper over six months of extensive discussions with NGOs in the EU, in Ghana and in Côte d’Ivoire. The paper does not present a final position, but outlines the issues that negotiations in Brussels, Accra and Abidjan should consider.

The paper can be downloaded here.

The Cocoa Barometer Consortium is pleased to launch our latest consultation paper, on agroforestry in the cocoa sector. 

Cocoa agroforestry systems can bring a wide range of ecological benefits; biodiversity conservation of flora and fauna, carbon sequestration, preserving and strengthening soil moisture and fertility, contributing to pest control, and microclimatic control such as stimulating rainfall, and many other benefits.

However, a large gap separates the current reality of agroforestry in the cocoa sector from its potential, and agroforestry should not replace forest areas, nor can simplified agroforestry be a substitute for more diverse agroforestry systems.

This paper highlights shortcomings in current industry and government approaches to agroforestry in cocoa. It also suggests a way forward to ensure that cocoa agroforestry delivers on its promise of environmental sustainability while contributing to farmers’ livelihoods. And it proposes basic parameters of integrated agroforestry cocoa standards on both farm and landscape scale and sets forward recommendations for all actors in the supply chain.

The paper is available here for online viewing, here for a pdf version, and here for a print friendly version.

The VOICE Network and its members are deeply concerned about the effects of COVID-19 on cocoa farming households, a group already in a vulnerable position. Our immediate concern is for the health and wellbeing of members of cocoa farming households. We are equally concerned about the direct economic impact this global crisis will have on families, who live already well below a living income. During the 2016 price crash, the cocoa and chocolate industry made strong profits while farmers and producing governments lost billions of dollars. Cocoa and chocolate companies did virtually nothing then to support their farmers. This cannot happen again.

Today, we release a Call to Action to the cocoa and chocolate industry to do everything within their means to help protect their cocoa farmers. We offer four key considerations from the chocolate and cocoa industry which play into their role and responsibility, and mirrors responses we see in their employee care in consuming countries.

1. Cease all non-essential farm visits
2. Support communication to farming communities on health messaging
3. Use existing supply chain mechanisms for provisioning farming communities
4. Set up an emergency relief fund commensurate to the challenge

Our full paper can be read here.

Update: since the original publication of this call for an EU Due Diligence requirement, various cocoa and chocolate companies have joined this coalition. In addition to the orginal industry signatories of Barry Callebaut, Mars Wrigley and Mondelez, we can add Nestlé, Tony Chocolonely, Unilever and Ferrero. An updated version of the document can be found here.

We, a group of companies (Barry Callebaut AG, Mars Wrigley and Mondelēz International), The VOICE Network*, Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade, call on the European Union, by far the largest importer and consumer of cocoa in the world, to strengthen human rights and environmental due diligence requirements of companies in global cocoa supply chains, aligned with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

We strongly believe that we all need to take action together to effectively address some of the systemic human rights and environmental challenges in the cocoa supply chain. National governments must enforce and strengthen their own labour, child protection and environmental laws, and companies have a responsibility to conduct due diligence to identify risk, jointly evaluate remediation and take action which is proportionate to their exposure to the human rights and environmental risk.

Therefore, we think an EU-wide approach to due diligence will benefit all actors in the supply chain in terms of a clear and consistent set of rules and common intent.

The EU should:

• Aim to negotiate bilateral agreements with cocoa origin governments to create the frameworks necessary to achieve this aim and provide financial and technical support to those governments to do so.
• Establish a regulatory and policy framework within the EU to ensure that companies conduct human rights and environmental due diligence in their supply chains.  This will help encourage sustainable cocoa production, support consumer trust and help sustain market demand for cocoa from West Africa over the long term.

Find our Joint Position Statement outlining the details of our call to action here. We are looking forward to working with relevant authorities, the rest of the industry and various stakeholders to discuss what is proposed. We invite others to endorse our Joint Position Statement.

Media enquiries should be addressed to: antonie@voicenetwork.cc

* The VOICE Network is an association of NGOs and trade unions, functioning as a watchdog and catalyst for a reformed cocoa sector. Its members are ABVV/FGTB-Horval, Be Slavery Free (formerly Stop The Traffik), EFFAT (observer), FERN, FNV, Green America, Inkota Netzwerk, International Labor Rights Forum, Mighty Earth, Oxfam Novib, Oxfam Wereldwinkels, Public Eye (observer), Solidaridad, and Südwind Institut.

The announcement that the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments will raise the floor price for cocoa farmers, as well as levy an extra fee to cocoa buyers, is an important and necessary step in order to make the cocoa sector more sustainable and should be supported by the cocoa industry. The VOICE network welcomes this historic initiative by the governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to improve the income situation for farmers, although questions remain on its implementation.

Read our full response here.

With a growth in members and an increase in activities, we are now looking to strengthen the coordination of our network. With this new position, we are looking for someone who can help steering the network, with a focus on planning, monitoring, administration and logistics.

Read the vacancy here. Deadline for submissions is August 21st.

The past months have seen a lot of developments around certification in the cocoa sector – such as the release of the new ISO standard, Fairtrade’s revised Minimum Price and Living Income Reference Price, and a consultation on the first draft of the new merged Rainforest/UTZ  standard. We believe that it is time for civil society to take stock of where we are.

To this purpose we are pleased to share a short position paper on the current state of certification. Of particular concern to us is the danger of a race to the bottom on pricing, and we call strongly on especially the Rainforest Alliance to put in place minimum pricing and premium systems. Increasing market share by paying the farmer less should not be a strategy for any sustainability standard.

In this position paper, we look at the strengths and shortcomings of voluntary standards, and argue that in order to achieve true sustainability there must be mandatory due diligence regulations, creating a level playing field for all.