Rolling out climate smart Cocoa through public-private partnership in Ghana: A Framework highlighting the step-by-step procedure towards climate smart cocoa finance in Ghana

The cocoa industry has been the mainstay of the Ghanaian economy over the years through the provision of revenues from foreign exchange earnings and the generation of employment for farmers who are mainly small holders. Climate change is a phenomenon that has been taking place throughout history but over the last century it has accelerated and scientists believe it is increasingly due to human activities (Cook et al, 2016). The climate in Ghana has likewise been affected and it is having an impact on agricultural production and therefore cocoa. Thus, cocoa farming areas have been delineated into three climatic impact zones – Cope, Adjust and Transform. The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ghana together with the Rainforest Alliance has recently documented and aligned Climate Smart Cocoa practices across the three impact zones to help farmers mitigate the effects of climate change. This document is a step-by-step process to facilitate the partnership among public and private sector financing of Climate smart cocoa (CSC)

Policy document and brief for engagement with government and private sector in Cocoa: A case of Ghana

There is a gap today in funding for investment in developing countries. A recent assessment of financing in the agriculture sector in Ghana based on existing financial sector laws showed that, there is currently no distinct policy to enable lending to the agricultural sector. However, with an ever increasing need to address the challenges of climate change, the need for such policies and resulting finance opportunities for smallholder farmers and other supply chain actor will only increase and become more urgent. Unchanged, most needed investments to address the growing challenges will be made by the private sector or by the farmers themselves. Therefore, public actors, including COCOBOD, need to play a key role in building an enabling environment, including the development of supportive policies, institutions and making matching-funds available. Reducing supply chain risk and improving resilience through such efforts that signal a more secure and favourable framework is key to enabling private actors, especially the more financially vulnerable, to invest. Existing policy initiatives and programs geared towards creating an enabling environment for finance to the sector are currently led by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and other sector agencies and financial NGO’

Unlocking Barriers to Adoption and Scaling of Climate Smart Cocoa Practices in Ghana

Cocoa production in West Africa has been adversely affected by climate change at varying degrees. The cocoa farming areas in Ghana vary according to severity in impact of climate change and has been delineated into three climatic impact zones namely; Transform, cope and adjust zones. For years, cocoa industry technical experts have recommended Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) without considering the different farmer typologies across the climate impact zones. The Consultative Group for international Agricultural Research (CGIAR) through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ghana recently documented and aligned climate smart cocoa (CSC) practices across the three impact zones to help farmers mitigate against the effect of Climate change. The aim of this study was to identify farmer typologies in the different climate impact zones and how this affect adoption of CSC recommendations. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire from 270 cocoa farming household on socio-economic characteristics and intensity of CSC implementation across. Preliminary findings from a principal component analysis using the R software statistical package showed three cluster of Cocoa farmers in the impact zones. The results also show varying intensity of implementation of CSC practices which determines the efficiency of the clusters. The first cluster of cocoa farmers is characterized as the least efficient in production in terms of Cocoa productivity (248.2793 kg/ha) and Cocoa income (USD 981.3244 per annuum) while the second cluster of farmers are the most efficient with the highest cocoa income (USD 3000.309 per annum) and Cocoa productivity (583.6498 kg/ha). The third Cluster represent farmers with the most resources in terms of land under cocoa (3.7 ha) and hired out labor (≃4 people from the household). In all clusters, access to hybrid seedlings, financial challenges and extension service delivery were identified as challenges hindering adoption of CSC recommendation. It is recommended that farmer typologies aligned with CSC recommendations in the climate impact zones should be taken into consideration for effective adoption

Stepwise Climate-Smart Cocoa pilots in the cope and adjust climate impact zones

As part of efforts in developing a business case for investing in climate-smart cocoa (CSC) practices, IITA has partnered with Public and Private sector organizations (PBC and CARGILL respectively) in the cocoa industry to co-learn on tailored made climate-smart cocoa practices in Ghana. A collaboration agreement has been signed between IITA and the companies to run CSC pilots for a period of 12 months. The end goal is to introduce farmers to the CSC practices through a co-learning process and to co-generate CBA data on each CSC practice through the establishment of stepwise CSC Pilots in two cocoa climate impact zones. This is expected to enhance the adoption and scaling-up of climate-smart cocoa by the companies and other stakeholders in the cocoa industry

A Report on: Engaging Private sector actors in cocoa value chains in adopting Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC) Practices in Ghana

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and its consortium members (Sustainable Food Lab-SFL, Root Capital-RC, Rainforest Alliance-RA and CIAT) on the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Flagship Project entitled, “Mainstreaming Climate Smart Value Chains “has for the past two years laid the foundation to engage the private sector in piloting new CSC recommendations. A period of diagnostics has culminated into decision support tools ready for use in the pilots in three climate impact zones delineated by the project (see map). The objective of meetings with the private sector was to scope their commitment for Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) adoption. It was also to understand whether the private sector have on-going initiatives towards addressing the challenges of CC in the cocoa value chain. To do this, some of the private sector companies were contacted for possible collaboration with the consortium to pilot and co-learn with the implementation of the new Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC) practices with their farmers. The team that represented the consortium in the process of engaging the private sector was mainly from IITA and SFL

Four AICCRA-Ghana partners are using project-generated climate information services to support farmer resilience to climatic shocks| Outcome Impact Case Report (OICR) for PDO 1

Ghana partners are using project-generated climate information services to support farmer resilience to climatic shock

Ghanaian farmers are using AICCRA-Ghana advisories to improve their climate-sensitive decision making - Ghana Outcome Impact Case Report (OICR for PDO 2)

Ghanaian farmers are using AICCRA-Ghana advisories to improve their climate-sensitive decision making

Divergent climate smartness priority setting by practitioners vis-à-vis advisors: implications on inclusivity, one-health achievement, and enabling environment

By capturing the prioritization of 22 innovations by 71 farmers against those of advisors, this paper examines the level of awareness and contextualized conceptualization of 31 indicators of Climate Smartness Plus (equity, one health and enabling environment). Concordance analysis reveals differences in prioritization among farmers and agricultural advisors: with advisors giving relatively higher ratings as they set broader goals than farmers. We find that farmers give equal priority to productivity, adaptation, and mitigation while advisors overly prioritise productivit

Policy document detailing the use of the stepwise investment approach for Climate-Smart Cocoa adoption by farmers and companies

"The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Rainforest Alliance (RA), in conjunction with its partners The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), The Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) and Root Capital (RC) through the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security’s (CCAFS) Phase 1 (2015-2018) on Mainstreaming Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC) project laid the foundation for this second phase of CCAFS. Under phase one, a lot of progress was made which led to the development of the climate exposure maps for Ghana’s cocoa sector and the recommendation of site-specific Climate smart Agriculture practices for the cocoa sector which recently being used by the Ghana COCOBOD as basis for the development of a climate smart cocoa standard. This novel approach to climate resilience, mitigation and adaptation in the cocoa sector promises to be the anchor towards sustainable production of the crop and the results of which can serve as a model for other crops in the region and beyond. What is lacking is the industries inability to push for the institutionalisation of these CSA packages (WCF Climate Smart cocoa Manual) in the training programs of companies and other certification bodies. There is also very limited data on the stepwise approach for climate smart cocoa and the need to establish a business case for CSA investment in both the cope and adjust zones. This document serves as a policy guide to help companies and cocoa sector stakeholders to adopt the use of the proposed stepwise Investment pathway using climate smart cocoa practices

Adoption of Climate-Smart Cocoa practices in the adjust and cope climatic impact zones of Ghana

Cocoa (Theobroma Caocao) remains an important crop to the Ghanaian economy, due its historical contribution to revenue, foreign exchange and the creation of direct and indirect jobs. The sector however continues to face production challenges such as aging cocoa trees, reduced soil fertility, pest and disease infestations and recently the effects of climate change. These threaten the productivity and sustainability of cocoa in Ghana. The introduction of Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC) practices for designated climate impact zones in Ghana thus offer significant avenue for improving productivity and livelihood of cocoa farmers (IITA, 2019). Promoting the adoption of Climate Smart Cocoa (CSC) practices among farmers is central to sustaining the crop, improve livelihood and resilience of farmers, and mitigate the emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) (Bunn et at., 2019). Although cocoa farmers are being introduced to CSC practices, their adoption is likely to be influenced by various factors. In Ghana, Akrofi-Atiotianti et al. (2018) established that factors such as the age and location of farms, farmers’ age, residential status and access to extension services influences adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) by cocoa farmers. Another key variable relevant to the adoption of Climate Smart Cocoa practices is timely access to weather information by cocoa farmers. The provision of weather stations data to famers can assist them to identify climate trends and improve their climate change risk assessments (UTZ, 2016). Such weather information can be made available to farmers either through the sharing of information within farmer groups or through mobile phone applications. This report presents the factors that influence CSC adoption among selected cocoa farmers in two Climatic Impact Zones in Ghana. It also established how critical farmer access to weather information influences cocoa productivity. Such studies will advise policy makers and help initiate practicable strategies that will facilitate the successful adoption of these practices by farmers. The CCAFS CSC( IITA and Rainforest Alliance) project team adopted the 5Q approach to rapidly access CSC adoption rates among cocoa farmers across two climatic impact zones ( Cope and Adjust ). The main aim was to see if the stepwise CSC Approach being promoted was yielding the desired results and to understand cocoa farmers perceptions on what these gains could be. A Semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 200 cocoa farmers all of whom are part of CSC trials in 4 cocoa growing communities across two climatic impact zones ( Cope and Adjust ) managed by AGRO ECO . This brief report encapsulates the CSC adoption rates and farmers perceptions on the benefits derived from CSC