A recommendation has gone to Governments, NGOs, Companies and Consumers to work together to ensure that, farmers are supported in meeting the requirements for Legislations such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) compliance and to compensate them fairly for their efforts.
This came to light during the launch of Fifth Edition of the Chocolate Scorecard (2024), organized by EcoCare Ghana, in partnership with Be Slavery Free and Mighty Earth held in Accra on the theme, ‘’making sure that the chocolate you eat is a good chocolate’’.
The Fifth Edition of Chocolate Scorecard (2024) in its findings revealed that, the chocolate industry is undergoing significant improvement how, it is faced with the challenges such as farmer poverty which remain unaddressed.
Addressing the media, Mr. Obed Owusu-Addai, Managing Campaigner for EcoCare Ghana pointed out that, the Chocolate Scorecard further recommend that, Child labour interventions must be scaled up to eradicate it in all supply chains adding that, there is the need for traceability by focusing on addressing the root causes such as poverty that leads to its prevalence.
Further recommendation he averred was that, Companies must work towards reducing the pesticide use and implementing more sustainable farming practices to protect farmers particularly children, the environment and also ensure the long-term viability of cocoa.
Mr. Addai said, because of the hazardous nature of some pesticides, farms have been depleted, killing bees and butterflies so, he urged FDA, Ghana Standards Authority and Cocobod to ensures that, chemicals that comes into the market to be used by cocoa farmers, meet the minimum standard and are not hazardous to insects on the farms.
He entreated government through Cocobod and Ministry of Agriculture, to work with farmers to absorb agroforestry practices and plant trees on their farms whilst, they put systems in place to trace cocoa from its origin to the point of export saying, there is a key component of the EU in deforestation regulations.
On the issue of child labour and force labour, the recommendation was that, companies have to come together and work with government for a nationwide programme which would be more effective to bring more results than working in silos.
Authorities were further urged to ensure that those chemicals are not hazardous to people especially, children helping on cocoa farms not because they are doing child labour but, might accompany their parents to the farm.
About agroforestry, the recommendation was that, government should work to eliminate legislative and policy bottleneck that are not allowing agroforestry to strive in Ghana.
On the part of living income, it was discovered that challenges surrounding it is based on poverty and that, the fundamental causative agent for poverty has to do with farmers not being paid the right price for their cocoa beans.
Chocolate companies were therefore, charged to pay commensurate rate for beans that farmers produce to cover their production and also have some to take care of their families.
The Chocolate companies scored on sixe key thematic areas namely; Traceability and Transparency, Living Income for farmers, Child Labour, Deforestation and Climate Change, Agroforestry and Pesticides.
Chocolate Scorecard improvements in traceability are evident in response to EU Deforestation Regulations (EUDR), yet achieving full EUDR compliance remains a work in progress.
Investing in national traceability systems such as the Cocoa Management and Traceability System (CMS) being developed by the COCOBOD, is said to be the way to go.
Companies are said to be aware of their responsibility of ensuring that farmers get a decent income from cocoa.
Environmental initiatives, such as climate targets, ending deforestation and use of agroforestry, are gaining momentum in part due to emerging legislation (partcutarly in the EU) requiring that companies take caring for the planet seriously,
