Bottlenecks, stresses and risks in the cocoa supply chain in Ghana: recommendations to increase its resilience

Year of publication2023

AuthorFAO

PublisherFAO

AbstractCocoa is a key sector of Ghana’s economy, contributing about 2 percent of GDP as well as providing a livelihood, or part thereof, for about 30 percent of the population. This study, based on stakeholder answers to detailed questionnaires and conducted from October 2021 to April 2022, aims to identify and evaluate risks as well as major bottlenecks, threatening and constraining the cocoa supply chain and limiting its resilience. The results show that extreme temperatures, droughts, and pests and disease are the most important risks and stressors that cocoa farmers face. This is also reflected in what stakeholders considered the most important bottlenecks, i.e. inadequate rainfall, the lack of irrigation and weather insurances, and limited domestic processing capacity. Climate change is an important driver of some of these risks and stressors. Key recommendations to strengthen the resilience of the cocoa supply chain in Ghana, that emerge from the study’s findings, include building preventive and anticipative resilience by investing in climate information services and promoting agroforestry; building absorptive resilience through weather insurance and customized finance; building adaptive resilience through irrigation programmes, and; building transformative resilience through improving ICT systems, increasing domestic capacities for processing cocoa beans and investing in productivity.

 

ThemeAgricultural Commodities and Development

Product typeBook (stand-alone)

SeriesFAO Commodity and Trade Policy Research Working Paper

ISBN978-92-5-138375-9

Areas of workEmerging Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

CommodityCoffee and Cocoa

Keywordscocoa beans; supply chains; COVID-19; climate change; plant pests; plant diseases; impact assessment; resilience; climate services; agroforestry; weather index insurance; irrigation schemes; Information and Communication Technologies; Ghana