Fairtrade Africa, a non-profit organisation working in the agriculture sector, has underscored the need to scale up agroforestry practices that integrate cocoa with fruit trees, timber and staple or leguminous crops on the same land.
The approach would not only restore degraded soils but help to diversify farmer incomes to ensure that households no longer rely solely on cocoa.
Speaking at a dissemination workshop in Accra last Thursday, the Project Manager of Fairtrade Africa’s Ghana Agroforestry for Impact (GAIM), Samuel Osei Kwadwo, said agriculture in the cocoa landscape was facing erratic rainfall, rising temperatures and falling yields, hence dynamic agroforestry was one of the key tools farmers could adopt to support them to increase resilience and to address the climate challenges facing cocoa production.
Project
GAIM is a project being implemented in Ghana by Fairtrade Africa with support from the French Development Agency (AFD) and other donors.
Commerce Equitable Afrique (CEA) trading as Fairtrade Africa (FTA) is the leading producer centered organisation advancing fair and sustainable trade across Africa and the middle East.
They represent and serve more than 1.4 million small-holder farmers and workers in more than 690 Fairtrade Certified Producer organizations.
As part of the workshop, project implementers shared insights from a study that examined the experiences of farmers.
The study sought to document barriers and enabling factors shaping engagement with dynamic agroforestry, with attention to gender, youth and climate justice.
The study found that some cocoa farmers faced a structural off-season income gap since cocoa income was seasonal, while school fees, health and household costs are continuous.
For instance, one of the farmers interviewed said seasonal cocoa income made it difficult to cover year-round expenses, particularly school fees and other essential expenses.
As part of the project, seedlings, labour support and early food crops were provided free to encourage uptake of dynamic agroforestry.
These include cocoa, timber and fruit species such as avocado, citrus and coconut — as well as banana/plantain and staple or legume crops (yam, beans, cowpea) to improve household food security and soil fertility during establishment.
Sustainability
Mr Osei told journalists that with the average cocoa farmer in Ghana about 55 years old, younger people were needed to sustain the sector.
The youth-focused element of GAIM project, he said provided labour services and incentives to draw younger people into cocoa production and maintain the workforce needed for long-term farm sustainability.
He added that the project also responded to Ghana Cocoa Board’s calls for rehabilitation of diseased and unproductive cocoa farms, advocating for the national scale-up of dynamic agroforestry to help rehabilitate unproductive farms and provide additional income streams for farmers through intercrops and fruit trees.
Looking ahead, he said the project would target a wider rollout through cooperative networks and national agricultural programmes.
For her part, the Project Manager in charge of Civil Society Division of AFD, Sarah Botton, described the project as necessary, saying it aligned with her outfit’s objective to reduce poverty and create opportunities on the continent.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh