encouraging sustainable, responsible cocoa growing

For those who are not aware the Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL) is an inter-governmental Organization of world cocoa producing countries accounting for around 75% of the world supply of cocoa beans.
Created in 1962 by five founding members; Brazil, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria and including, today, Gabon, Dominican Republic, Malaysia, Sao Tome and Principe and Togo.
The Alliance has four main objectives:
1) The collection and dissemination of scientific and technical information on cocoa.
To materialize this objective COPAL organizes triennially the biggest International Cocoa research Conference in the world.
The next one, the 16th will be held in Bali Indonesia in November, 2009;
2) The promotion of socio-economic development of the Member States.
To materialize this we rotate our statutory and other meetings among members so we can learn from and share knowledge with one another;
3) To adequately supply the world cocoa market at remunerative prices.
Here some may say we have been over zealous at times and over produced but we are taking care of that as we go along, and,
4) The promotion of the expansion of the consumption of cocoa.
For us the emphasis has to be at origin and the developing and emerging economies especially in the wake of new scientific findings on the nutritional and health benefits of cocoa.

These are very exciting times for Cocoa and I am very excited about the prospects.
When we started the cocoa year 2007/08 we were selling cocoa at $2,024/tonne and we hit $3,300/tonne in June, 2008, prices we haven’t seen in 300years. Cocoa supply has been on the rise from about 3.4 million to around 3.7 million in 2007/08 with increases coming from Brazil, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia.
Demand has also increased to about 3.7million tonnes actually out pacing supply since 2000/01. During this period there have been 3 years of structural oversupply and 5 years of deficits.
So good prices have come from demand and supply interactions, strong demand for commodities in general and some speculative money. Money brought in to cover fears of inflation or to mitigate currency fluxes and money cashed for profits, the market eventually corrects itself when the fundamentals are strong.

This rosy picture, however, has a few problems that need to be fixed and this is why this symposium and grants to tease out innovations from and for the sector is so timely.
There are 3 producing zones worldwide but permit me to pick on West/Central Africa.
This zone has a commanding position on the supply side but needs some critical and bold decisions if it should maintain its comparative advantage over the other growing zones of the world.

1) There is too much land planted to cocoa for the cocoa being produced, almost 6 million hectares and most of the production gains have come from increased hecterage. We simply cannot afford to go that route anymore.
2) Farmers must learn to see each tree as a production unit and ensure that the output of each production unit is optimized;
3) Farmers need to increase their incomes from productivity, efficiency and quality gains. These are parameters they can manipulate, with a little help, rather than counting on sporadic price hikes they cannot influence.
4) Farmers need to intensify their productive biomass/ standing crop and release some land so as to diversify their sources of income to avoid economic over-dependency on cocoa thereby ensuring alternative sources of income where cocoa market prices are not attractive;
5) Less efficient and low technology-adopting farmers would need to leave the cocoa sector and, with government and donor intervention, go into the production of affordable food products for their populace.

Increased and improved farm incomes coming thus from productivity and marketing efficiencies, using ever-improving technological tools, would ensure that cocoa farms fit into functional landscape ecosystems, which will drive improved environmental and social conditions for their communities.

This is the beginning of a rural transformation process around cocoa that should be the key strategic objective of any policy reform.

This thinking started in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia in 2000 when during the 13th International Cocoa Research Conference we, Producers, Industry and Consumers realized finally that the world cocoa economy was one and needed to be sustainable.
We resolved to work in public and private partnership, in both North and South, for the creation of cocoa-based farming systems that are profitable and environmentally friendly in the long term, in order to offer better development prospects and effectively take action against poverty in the humid tropics.
We resolved equally to focus on all aspects of research and development including socio-economic aspects contributing towards a sustainable world cocoa economy.
WCF has built that partnership; Innovation, Research and Dissemination of research findings are the way forward.
I am proud to part of this process and I thank you for your kind attention.