Cocoa Living Income Compendium
A Cocoa Barometer Consultation Paper / September 2022
Living income1 is a human right, and as suchdeserves a centred position in any conversations
around the changes needed in the cocoa sector.2
3
Living income is also the necessary precondition
for all the other challenges in the cocoa sector to

be properly addressed. When farmers mustchoose between feeding their family, and not
cutting down old growth trees, it is not a choice.
When they must choose between feeding theirfamily or sending them to school, it is not a choice

Living Income is the net annual income required fora household in a particular place to afford a decent
standard of living for all members of that household.
Elements of a decent standard of living include food,water, housing, education, health care, transport,
clothing, and other essential needs including
provision for unexpected events (Living Income
Community of Practice 2020).

best obliquely refer to living income. It must be
unambiguously clear that living income is a key
requirement for any multinational to comply to their
obligations of Business and Human Rights.

1

Though living income is a human right, thesustainability legislations that have been or are being
developed, such as the French Devoir de Vigilance
and the EU Human Rights Due Diligence Guidance at
2

Recommendation: Living Income should beenshrined as a fundamental human right inlegislation. Due Diligence Regulations must include
Living Income as a key criterium, requiring thedevelopment and implementation of time-boundaction plans.
3either. Without a living income for cocoa farmers,
cocoa will never be sustainable.4 5
The past years have seen a series of major
developments on the topic of living income; theintroduction of the Living Income Differential by
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in 2019; thedevelopment of Living Income Reference Prices
by amongst others Fairtrade and Tony’s
Chocolonely; Living Income Benchmarks
becoming available for the major cocoa
producing countries by the Living Income
Community of Practice; many different reports on
the topic; and a whole range of programs
developed by various companies aimed atincreasing farmer incomes. The conversation has
also moved from questions around themeasurement of living income towards
discussing strategies of closing the gap. And,
increasingly, farm gate prices are becoming
elevated as topic of debate.
In short, living income has become an accepted
goal for the cocoa sector.6
However, there is an overall lack of open
discussions leading to concrete commitments
towards a living income, either by individualcompanies, by governments, or by sector-wide
initiatives. Company purchasing practices have
tried to circumvent or avoid higher prices such as
the LID or Living Income Reference Prices. There
has been very little public conversation about theindustry’s business model, including about how

However, most sustainability programmes – as wellas proposed legislations - only aim to address living
income in cocoa through either indirect approaches often as a result of buying into the myths described
below – or by skipping living income directly andtrying to tackle issues such as child labour or
deforestation without a holistic approach to solving
the underlying poverty.
4

Recommendation: company sustainability
programmes should not consider a living income forfarmers to be an unattainable ideal but should all
develop time-bound action plans that make a living
income achievable for all suppliers in their value
chain.
5

they set the prices they pay. There is anincreasing focus on better-off farmers, ignoring
the plight of the lower income farmers. A topdown approach is adopted and there are
precious few farmer voices heard in thisconversation, while gender equality is largely
side-lined in this conversation.
It is therefore no surprise that many farmers arestill not earning a living income. In fact, most arevery far from earning a living income, and noteven moving towards it. And many actors arelargely pointing at what others need to change intheir approach, rather than being willing tochange themselves.7
Both industry and governments will need tosignificantly change their business as usual. Let us
be very clear; not a single stakeholder group is
currently doing what they should be doing toensure farmers achieve a living income.
Resistance to the necessary change is real. A lotof this resistance has found its way into a wide
range of assumptions, simplifications, andsometimes plain wrong ideas around why living
income hasn’t been achieved yet.
The first part of this Living Income Compendium
tries to answer these “myths”8 in a concise but
clear manner, as a Frequently Asked Questionsof sorts. The second part suggests a way
forward, outlining actions for all actors involved,
as well as providing a prioritisation of actions.

Both the Dutch Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa(DISCO) and the Belgian Beyond Chocolate national
platform have living income as unequivocal goals.
6

In the words of a former senior cocoa executive, “itseems that these old-style sustainability interventions
have been superb at guaranteeing future supplies forfactories whilst keeping prices low. The unintended
consequence has been the perpetuation of the main
challenge that farmers face: poverty.”7

The use of the word ‘myth’ doesn’t mean that thesearguments are always wrong, it just means they arenever completely right. The truth is generally a lot
more complex than many of the simplifications andarguments brought forward.
8

Myths on increasing income
Most farmers are destined to be poor
A living income is the minimum level of decency
for a household. As such, it should be abundantly
clear that a living income is the starting point of aconversation on farmer livelihood, not a finishline. However, most sustainability approaches
see living income as an aspirational goal that will
most likely not be achieved any time in the near
future.
Many recent reports from the cocoa sector (Suchas WUR/Mondelez 2021 and FCIP 2021) showthat only a small percentage of cocoa farmers areable to earn a living income.9 There is an
unspokenassumption
thatfarmersofcommodities, whether it be cocoa, soy, coffee,
palm oil, or any other commodity, by default are
And these reports are incomplete, as there is agood chance that most of these farmers are actuallyearning money from other sources and are making
9poor. Commodity farmers are expected to barely
scrape by.
The stark contrast with employees further down
the supply chain is striking. Middle managers of achocolate company, earn a comfortable
livelihood. CEOs, owners of chocolatecompanies, and retailers, can even become therichest families in their country.
They earn a comfortable livelihood because of
the cocoa supply chain they are engaged in,while only the outlier cocoa farmers are expected
to even reach the baseline of a living income.
Part of the reason why living income isconsidered merely aspirational is that companies
only consider a very limited set of solutions (andpredominantlyatfarmlevel).
The
use of sharecroppers, tenants, and labourers, whomost definitely are not earning a living income.

cocoa/chocolate sector is highly profitable, these
profits are just not shared equitably.
Most readers of this paper would not accept astatus of living income for their own household.
Why should it be acceptable for cocoa farmers? A
mediocre cocoa farmer should be able to earn aliving income, outliers should be able to become
quite comfortable growing cocoa. Some may
think that this farmer poverty is a fact of life that is
impossible to change. “It was always this way”.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The issue
of farmer poverty can be changed provided there
is sufficient will to do so. This paper offers a varietyof recommendations how this could be achieved.

Higher yields close the income gap
The main approach of cocoa companies has
been to try to increase farm productivity10. There
are two main reasons why this is an insufficientapproach.
Firstly, despite significant investments andcountlessefforts
withinsustainability
programmes,11 average productivity is not goingup significantly at all.12
Common approaches to this are training in good
agricultural practices, the distribution of cocoa andshade tree seedlings, and making available
agrochemical inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides.
10

Companies have had sky-high ambitions to see a
tripling of yields, with some programmes claimingthat 1,500 kg per hectare should be possible for most
farmers. However, a variety of causes such as highcosts, insecure land tenure, a lack of access to labour
and affordable inputs and credit, and a range ofother challenges – as described elsewhere in thisdocument – keep adoption rates extremely low.
11

One of the few exceptions to this is Tony’s
Chocolonely. The hypothesis of the authors of thispaper is that this is because of the changed incentive
structure in this system; because of much betterpurchasing practices it is more remunerative forfarmers to grow more cocoa.
12

It is important to state that though higher yields
don’t always lead to higher net incomes, they need tobe part of the equation if farmers want to raise theirincomes. Especially coupled with diversification,access to finance, input subsidies, etc. Furthermore, ahealthy resilient plantation should not be measured
only by productivity, but rather by a variety ofparameters that together create the necessary
enabling environment to earn a living income.
13

Secondly, recent reports show that productivity
increase programmes do not have an inherent
positive effect on the net income of cocoa
farming households (WUR/Mondelez 2021, FCIP
2021, Dalberg 2018). After two decades, theseare devastating outcomes, considering this has
been the key strategy of the cocoa industry tosolve its biggest challenge.
There are several reasons why increased
productivity on its own cannot be the key strategy
to bridging the living income gap.13
Firstly, increasing productivity requires significant
investments in resources, which are neither
available nor affordable for most cocoa farmers.14
Even if they were available and affordable, thesecome with significant risks, compared to thepossible return on investment.15
Secondly, increasing productivity requires anincrease in labour hours.16 Even with current
production levels, many cocoa farmers in major
producing countries find it difficult to findenough labour for their farms during peak times.
This is, not coincidentally also one of the reasons
why families revert to household members to
In order to achieve a productivity increase,fertilisers, seedlings, and other inputs need to beavailable and affordable. This is not the case in mostof the West African cocoa growing regions. Even if
these materials were available, farmers would have toinvest money and labour to obtain and apply these
inputs. This requires access to affordable credit,
which is not available to most farmers. In addition,
credits are risky for farmers, as low harvests –- due todiseases, unfavourable weather conditions, adecrease of farm gate price, or a combination ofthese factors –- might leave the farmer with debts hecannot pay off.
14

Barry Callebaut recently stated that doublingproductivity from current levels would require an
increase of investment from $70 per hectare to $470
per hectare. This basically means an investment of$400 to achieve a net income increase of at most$200 per hectare, provided all other costs remain
equal (something that is very unlikely).
15

Unfortunately, there are presently no publicly
available reliable data on the relation between labourdays and productivity per hectare. However,published and unpublished data of companies andresearch institutions available to the authors of thispublication show that an increase to about 800
kilograms per hectare would require an increased
amount of labour of at least 50%.
16

help with the farming, which implies engaging
children on their farms.
Both of these challenges can be overcome,provided the return on investment will be highenough, and provided the risks are manageable.
However, farm gate prices are too low and often
uncertain.17
Even if yield increases were to be achieved, a next
problem would arise; a situation of oversupply,
leading to lower prices. If only 10% of all farmers
would double productivity and by this fulfil therequirements of many companies, prices would
fall drastically, thereby undoing any potential
improvement of net income.
Furthermore, both the risks of crop failure and of
market collapse are fully borne by farmers.
Achieving higher net incomes through higher
yields, all in all, seems like an approach that
requires farmers to do a lot of extra work, at highrisk, with a very uncertain positive outcome forfarmers.
Any claims that poverty is being tackled throughincreased productivity should be accompanied
by robust calculations on the impact of theseproductivity increases – including transparency on
increased production costs, both for labour andresources.

Diversification raises farmer income
Increasing farm diversity is an important elementof strengthening the resilience of farmer income.
In Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire there are many reports
of farmers receiving far less than the guaranteed farm
gate price. The authors of this paper have regularly
heard of farmers being compelled to sign documents
stating they received higher farm gate prices than inreality. Additionally, many farmers are cheated by theuse of manipulated scales at buying stations.
17

These include protection of biodiversity, reductionof reliance on agrochemicals through appropriate
Integrated Pest Management, and stronger climatechange adaption possibilities. An extensive
discussion on the benefits, possibilities and limitationof agroforestry can be found in our 2020 consultation
paper.
18

Closely linked to this is the myth that farmers canescape poverty by producing higher quality cocoa,
for example for the fine flavour market. Though thismight help a few individual farmers on a micro scale,there simply isn’t enough demand globally forfine/flavour chocolate. Most consumers just want low
19

In the case of price collapses, crop diseases, oradverse weather conditions, having alternative
sources of income provides a stability that only
growing cocoa could not offer. Furthermore,diversifying through agroforestry can lower input
cost, increase access to food and fuel wood, andprovide significant environmental benefits.18
However, diversification alone won’t solve theproblem of increasing the income of cocoa
farmers.19
Urging cocoa farmers to grow other cash crops such as coffee, banana, pineapple, rubber, or
palm oil - to solve poverty is an outsourcing of
responsibility; if cocoa farming itself is not
remunerative, we need to fix the cocoa farming
part first.
Diversified production requires a healthy market
for diversified products.20 However, farmers ofpossible diversification cash crops generally arealso poor. This signifies a feedback loop ofpoverty, with many different sectors not able toprovide a living income, all looking to other crops
to solve their problem.21
Diversification is an important element of good
agricultural practices on any cocoa farm tostrengthen resilience. It is not a solution to making
cocoa more remunerative.

Pilot projects lead to living income
The dominant approach taken by companies so
far has been to set up small-scale projects

grade chocolate products with lots of sugar and milkin it.
Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are both net foodimporting countries, which is a strange fact
considering their economies are largely agriculture
focused. As such, there is a real argument to bemade for agricultural and rural development policies
that are much more aimed at strengthening local
markets.
20

Closely linked to this is the argument that cocoa
producing countries should focus more efforts on
cocoa processing in country. Firstly, this ignores thefact that both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire alreadyprocess significant amounts of cocoa themselves. For
example, Cote d’Ivoire is regularly the world’s
number one cocoa processing country. Secondly,
increasing the share of processing does nothing todirectly influence the economic situation of cocoa
farmers themselves.
21

implemented over a number of years withsignificant investment. There are several fallacies
with this approach.
Firstly, setting up pilots raises the impressions
that we don’t know how to raise incomes,
whereas a lot of knowledge by now is available(such as that we know that higher prices will
have a positive impact, that productivity increase
only helps if the market is remunerative enoughetc).
Secondly, working through pilot projects
assumes that what works in the small-scale will
work on a large scale, which won’t be the casenecessarily, Instead, there is a risk that the Living
Income pilots will only extend to a preferredgroup of farmers.
Thirdly, they usually take a project approach thatsits apart from a company’s core supply chain
and procurement practices.
Pilots can be useful ways of testing innovative
solutions, but they should not be the only way ofworking towards a living income.

Bigger farms lead to living income
Some farms, the argument goes, are too small tobe economically viable. However, this argument
misses several important elements.
There is a limit to how big a farm can efficiently
be managed by a single household. Viability isclosely connected with labour input, and not onlywith farm size. Provided a farm is achieving
standard productivity of 550 Kg/ha at around 90
labour days per hectare, a single household
could manage up to 3 ha without hired labour.
For achieving medium productivity of 800 kilo
per hectare, much more work is necessary,
probably closer to 125 labour days per hectare,which would give a maximum viable size of 2
hectares.
If a family spends 40% of their available time on thecocoa farm, the farm only needs to bring in 40% of aliving income.
22

This would suggest that small farms might actually
be more viable than large farms. However,efficiencies of scale could benefit larger farms. Moredata is needed to provide a conclusive answer eitherway.
23

If the farm requires more labour than is available,
this often leads to higher incidences of childlabour. On the other end of the spectrum, a farmthat is too small to support an entire household
will not require all the time of the household, andtherefore will also not have to earn a fullhousehold living income.22
Furthermore, there is an inverse correlation
between farm size and productivity per hectare;
farmers grow more cocoa per hectare on asmaller farm than on a bigger one.23 This might
be caused by low cocoa prices, as there isn’t areturn on investment to hire the necessary labour
required to achieve higher productivity.
Additionally, in currently available datasets24, it ishighly likely that most farmers that seem to beearning a living income are helped bysharecroppers or tenants. However, their needs
are not factored into the calculations.
Cocoa is a labour-intensive crop; the work has tobe done one way or another. If it isn’t grown bysmallholder farmers, it will have to be done byhired labourers, who will need to be receiving aliving wage.25
Additionally, the costs of inputs, which farmers
cannot avoid in order to maintain large cocoa
farms are becoming increasingly expensive. Even
if there had been a business case for larger farms,
increasing costs due to the Covid pandemic andthe economic effects of the Russian invasion in
Ukraine would be reducing profit margins tozero.
Labour is as limiting a physical factor as is farmsize. Any argument about farm size must be
coupled with data around the amount of labourand cost of inputs.

Some farmers will have to leave cocoa
Companies are increasingly segmenting farmers
into various categories26, identifying both top-tierSuch as data made available in the 2021
WUR/Mondelez report.
24

Additionally, workers also need access to labour
rights, including the right to freedom of association,
which is often under pressure in cocoa growing
countries.
25

Identifying which households are currently betteroff than others, which have larger farms, identifying
26

and bottom-tier farmers. The argument is often
heard that there is no place in the supply chain
for the smallest or poorest farmers27. A ‘Just
Transition’ would be needed, with fewer farmers
left on bigger farms, all of them able to earn aliving income.
Even if the cocoa sector would need to make atransition to less farmers28, cocoa and chocolatecompanies would have the responsibility – bothon moral as well as on legal grounds – to ensurethat these farmers can earn a decent livelihood
elsewhere.
Morally speaking, the cocoa sector has madevery good profits over the back of farmer
poverty29 for the past decades. Now thatcompanies are starting to be held accountable
for this, they cannot simply walk away from thepoorest farmers.
Moreover, under the concept of due diligence,companies have the responsibility to remedy theharm they have caused.30 We argue that thisincludes the harm of farmer poverty.
Vulnerable groups must be helped to reach aliving income, not further marginalised, or pushed
out of the cocoa value chain.

Higher prices solve everything
An often-heard statement in conversations is that
we shouldn’t only talk about price as the driver toliving income. This, however, is largely a false
statement, aimed at deflecting away from the keygroups of farmers that can more easily reach a living
income – or sometimes even already are doing so.
Part of the argument to do so is that it is easier thisway to design specific interventions, or even to learn
from the more successful farmers. However, there arequite a few dangers to this approach.
Farmers in the ‘higher’ segments are not one
homogenous block, clustered in specificgeographies. They are usually spread across all theother sourcing areas. Choosing these farmers totarget is impractical at best, and probably impossible
in most cases. Even if it were possible, companies
that choose to focus their sustainability efforts on the
better performing segments, create a selection bias
in the reporting of how well programmes areworking. The danger for greenwashing here issignificant.
Companies, however, have very little hesitation tobuy cocoa beans from these farmers.
27

point, which is that higher prices definitely mustbe part of the solution.
So far there has only one been a single attempt
to drive up farmer income by only looking at theprice of cocoa.
After decades of promises and programs fromthe private sector and public development aid
that have not led to income increases, theGhanaian and Ivorian governments attempted toaddress low farm gate prices by introducing the
Living Income Differential, the LID. By imposing alevy of $400 per tonne on all cocoa sales from
Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, more money would be
able to be passed on to cocoa farmers through aguaranteed minimum price.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the higher prices only lasted fora season. Though Ghana is still keeping the priceat the same level as when the LID was introduced,
inflation and increased costs of living mean thatin real terms this is a real decline in value.31
Furthermore, the government’s commitment to
the LID and stable farm gate prices in the midst ofhigh inflation, decreasing market prices and thede facto elimination of the country differential
means that the Ghanaian government is
subsidizing the current farm gate price,rendering it close to insolvency. Though it is an
important step in harnessing the power of the

And as we have argued earlier in this paper, that isa big if, because cocoa is a labour-intensive crop, andsomebody will need to do the work.
28

For decades, cocoa production has followed aswell as driven poverty, which is argued in the 2020
Cocoa Barometer. This poverty has been a major
driver for harms such as child labour anddeforestation. Cocoa and chocolate companies are
not innocent onlookers here but have been active
agents in this process as well.
29This is clearly put forward in the UN Guiding
Principles on Business and Human Rights. The thirdprinciple states that victims of violations must haveaccess to remedy. It is not a remedy if poor andvulnerable farmers are abandoned by the companies
that have purchased their cocoa for decades.
30

There are many signals that the guaranteed
minimum price is often not paid at farm gate level ineither country.
31

world’s largest cocoa producing nations,32 theLID has had a limited impact.
In addition to the LID, there are other differentials
on the terminal markets, such as country andquality differentials. These other differentials
have been negotiated downwards, to the levelthat any increase by the LID has been completely
negated. Additionally, there are persisting
rumours that companies have tried to circumvent
the LID by a range of different tricks on theterminal markets.33
Furthermore, price interventions must be
coupled with supply management34 if they are tohave any success in the medium to long term. Not
only are supply management strategies currently
absent, but many producing countries are also
actively trying to promote an increase of national
cocoa production.35
There is a real need to raise farm gate prices, andthere is a key role for producer governments toplay in supply management. However, the UN
Guiding Principles are clear that even when
governments do not fulfil their duty to protect
human rights, this does not absolve corporations
from their responsibility to respect human rights.
Companies cannot hide behind the absence of
supply management when it comes to their
responsibility to pay farmers a fair price.

Gender and income
Many of the households that have been identified
as ‘high risk’ for poverty are headed by females.
The VOICE Network released a paper in support of
the LID, when the mechanism was introduced. This
paper also outlined a range of parallel policies thatare necessary to ensure that it has a chance of
success. Very few of these additional policies havebeen implemented so far.
32

The most visible of these events was when the
Ivorian and Ghanaian governments temporarily
halted all of Hershey’s sustainability programmes
when it was discovered they had madeuncharacteristically large purchases outside of the
LID. It is commonly understood in the sector that
almost all companies have been involved in thesekinds of practices in some way or another, thoughproof is largely absent.
33

These supply management strategies should bepart of a broader government strategy for ruraldevelopment and agricultural policies.
34

Most of these countries, such as Nigeria, Peru, andEcuador, are not part of the LID system. However,35

The solution for these households is not totransition them out of cocoa, but to ensure thatwomen have the same rights and opportunities
as their male counterparts.
The way most programmes so far haveapproached gender and income is primarily
through Village Savings and Loans Associations(VSLAs) and/or alternative income generating
activities focused on women. Very little is done tostrengthen the position of women as cocoa
farmers themselves.
Another key short-term challenge in that regard
is to strengthen the position of women in maleheaded households.36 The work that women
undertake on farms, as well as household care, isoften invisible and unpaid. Women shouldn’t belooked at as merely wives of cocoa farmers or‘helpers’ or ‘supporters’ of their husbands, doing‘light tasks’ on their husbands’ farm; they are verymuch essential to cocoa farms.37 Despite thiscontribution they can have little to no say on how
income is spent because they are often not therecipient of the payments; usually, the male
household members sell the cocoa, while women
work on the farm, meaning that the money does
not directly get to the woman.
In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire there are many factorsthat contribute to the fact that women earnsignificantly less than men and male-headedhouseholds.

Ghana persists in a desire to increase its theirproduction by more than 50%, although it is highly
unlikely they will be able to achieve this. Meanwhile,
production in Peru and Ecuador is indeed rising
significantly, as is production in Côte d'Ivoire.
Recommendation: Strategies need to be
developed how to redistribute part of the benefits
from cocoa farming to the women and how tostrengthen their access to rights and inclusion.
36

Their work often includes planting, weeding,harvesting, and fermenting cocoa beans, collecting
water and wood for fuel, carrying theplucked/fermented cocoa beans through a longdistance for drying at homes before they are further
sent for weighing at sheds, caring for children andelders, washing the clothes - particularly gear of
those working on farm. All of this before sunset,
cooking and taking the food to the male farmers in
the cocoa groves, etc.
37

Women have much higher rates of illiteracy andinnumeracy, and also have a reduced access tomarkets. They do not have the same access tocredit and inputs needed to professionalise.
Women often lack representation in cooperatives
as well as community governance, especially inleadership. Even when women are the direct
recipient of interventions, prevailing social norms
contribute to a lack of socio-economic visibility,
agency and power. Social norms and the designof trainings often also does not account or
accommodate for women farmers unpaid care
work.
Women do not automatically benefit from higher
incomes. Therefore, every single programme andintervention must have a gender-specificapproach, ensuring rewards are distributed
equally, and risks are shared justly.

There is too much attention on higher
prices
The reality is that very few company programmes
include even a hint of higher farm gate prices.38
This is a grave omission, especially considering
price is the most direct way of supporting
farmers. Any additional price increase translates
into net income increase (unlike for the otherincome drivers).39

Fairtrade has developed a Living Income Reference
Price, but this has found very little market uptake, andTony’s Chocolonely has a significant pricing
component in their Open Chain system, that has by
now been taken up by several retailers, including
Ahold and ALDI.
38

We note with concern that farm gate cocoa prices –and even living income in general – are also atpresent not included in any of the regulatory
frameworks that are being developed in consuming
countries.
39

During the price crash of 2016, some cocoa
companies advised their farmers to no longer use
fertilisers, as there was no return on investments.
40

Such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade, who now
both have fixed premiums of $70 and $240,
respectively, per tonne. However, most of thisamount must be seen as a compensation for the extra
costs to comply to these standards.
41

Almost every chocolate and cocoa company has an
in-house sustainability programme, some working
together with the certification systems, others more
42

The chocolate industry, by and large, is unwillingto pay higher farm gate prices as part of thesolution.
For investments in good agricultural practices tobe remunerative, farm gate prices need to behigh and stable enough.40 Data from Tony
Chocolonely suggests that when farmers are paida higher price consistently over time, productivity
per hectare does indeed increase. Price, as cocoa
farmers often say, is the best fertiliser.
One modest way that higher payments to farmers
has been attempted is through the premiums
associated with certification systems41 and withcompany sustainability programmes.42 However,these premiums generally only provide
marginally higher income for farmers and are
insufficient to bridge the gap to a living income.43
Some reports44 suggest that higher prices won’t
help cocoa farmers significantly, and in fact might
be detrimental to farmers in the long term.45
However, all of these reports have looked atmarginal prices increases that are well within therange of price swings within the current market.46

independent. However, they often are extremely
untransparent about the payment of premiums, or of
the impact of their interventions on farmer income.
On the other hand, certification premiums are an
essential part of the income of cooperatives. As such,the financing provided through these systems are a
key ingredient in helping farmers organise andprovide the infrastructure needed for a lot of othernecessary interventions, as we argue in our 2019consultation paper.
43

Such as the WUR/MDLZ paper and the Dalberg(2015) paper. The authors of this paper note thatreports downplaying the impact of higher farm gate
prices are generally financed and/or commissionedby large chocolate companies.
44

The argument being that higher prices will lead tomore farmers wanting to grow cocoa, which could
lead to both deforestation and oversupply.
45

The world market price has been between $2,000
and $2,400 in the past few years. The farm gate priceis a lot lower than even that. WUR/MDLZ has lookedat the effects of a 17% price increase.
46

The prices needed47 are far higher than any ofthese reports have calculated.
It can’t only be about farm gate prices, but it mustalso be about farm gate prices. “Price is theengine of sustainability,”48 but so far, theconversation about how to raise farm gate prices
is not being had at all.

Higher prices only help better farmers
Another often heard argument against raising
prices is that this primarily helps alreadysuccessful farmers more than struggling farmers
in less successful segments. Though this is partly
true49 it is hardly an argument not to increase farm
gate prices.50
While raising prices might not help the struggling
farmers to completely reach a living income, it will
nonetheless help them increase income,sometimes by significant percentages.
Furthermore, this shows that struggling farmers
indeed need additional interventions besides
For the previous Cocoa Barometer we havecalculated that the farm gate price should be around$3,100 in both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. In themeantime, better availability of data indicated that
farmers are smaller than expected, average yields
have been declining, and costs of living and inflations
have risen dramatically, indicating that this pricecould probably be erring on the low side.
47

The words of a Ghanaian cocoa farmer in a
consultation workshop hosted by the VOICE Network
in February of 2022
48

Even farmers selling only very low volumes of
cocoa will profit from rising prices although thissingle action alone will not lift them above the living
income line. And as argued in the previous myths, itwould be a mistake to only focus on price.
49

Unless one believes that successful cocoa farmers
are not allowed to become rich, see also the first
myth.
50

A good example is Nestlé’s recently launched‘Living Income Accelerator’ programme, thatprovides direct cash transfers to households separateof the amount of cocoa the household has sold. Whatmakes this even stronger is the fact that half of the
cash transfers are directly paid to the women in thehousehold. However, this programmes sadly fails to
include any pricing component.
51“The supply of cocoa is inelastic in the short run
and […] cocoa is produced by millions of small
farmers. As a result, individual farmers are pricetakers with little or no bargaining power vis-à-vis local
52

higher farm gate prices. Many of these additional
interventions are not necessarily based on theamount of cocoa that these farmers can sell but
are a lot more about the enabling environment.
Gender equality, land, and tree tenure security,
as well as other household-based interventions
need to be a part of this.51

Supply and demand ensure fair prices
for farmers
In response to the 2015 Cocoa Barometer, theDutch government commissioned a study (SEO
2016) on the role of market concentration andprice formation in the global cocoa sector. Oneof the key outcomes of this report was that supply
and demand don’t work for cocoa farmers.52
Already in 1991, a former president of theEuropean Commission argued (Mansholt 1991)
that in agriculture, “the price mechanism does
not correspond very well to the ideal-typical neoclassical market concept.”53 This is even more thecocoa buyers. In addition, most cocoa farmers havevery few options for alternative income generating
activities. As a result, they will likely continue to
produce cocoa at very low prices.”
Sicco Mansholt was a Dutch farmer, politician, anddiplomat, and is considered the ‘Father of theCommon Agricultural Policy’.
53

In an op-ed in the early 1990’s, he stated that “Inagriculture […] the price mechanism does notcorrespond very well to the ideal-typical neo-classicalmarket concept. […] production decisions are madein millions of small enterprises, which work
predominantly with family labour. […]. In addition, thesocial and psychological bond to the farm is verystrong, which leads to strong immobility of labour andcapital. As a result, production capacity is rather
insensitive to price changes.
In a free market this will lead to a structural underremuneration of labour and wealth. […] technicaldevelopments exacerbate the problems ofoverproduction and income arrears. […]…. The pricemechanism appears to be insufficiently able to keepsupply developments in line with the demand side of
the market. These imbalances are further exacerbatedby the low price elasticity of demand for agriculturalcommodities, such as grains and oilseeds. All in all, analmost complete set of conditions for extremely
unbalanced market developments.”
Although Mansholt makes these arguments in thecontext of Western European agriculture, thesecase for tree crops than in annual crops, as
farmers are even more tied to their production.
Furthermore, whereas farmers do not have theoption to momentarily switch their sources of
production, many chocolate companies tend to
substitute cocoa for cheaper ingredients when
cocoa prices go up. The price of cocoa, it seems,
isn’t very troubled by supply and demand.54
Furthermore, across the developed world,
governments have chosen to decouple theremuneration of work from the system of supply
and demand through the introduction ofminimum wages. This kind of protection should
also be put in place for agricultural workers55 incommodities.
Pricing doesn’t take into consideration the true
cost of production and that price transmission isasymmetrical56.
In that context, additionally, it is devastating forcocoa farming communities that in the global
increase of cost of living that is spreading as thispaper was written, all the costs of living and of
producing cocoa are going up, but the price theyreceive for their cocoa is staying the same.
There is an increasing acceptance that the current
system doesn’t work for the farmer. At the sametime, concrete proposals for how to reform thesystem remain scarce and companies continue toreap the benefits from this broken system. As
governments in Europe pass legislations onenvironmental and human rights due diligence, it
can no longer be enough to hide behind theargument that “this is how the market works”.
Living Income is key to fulfil Due Diligencerequirements, and if the market fails to make thispossible for producers, companies andgovernments need to find new systems despite
the market. One such system could be thatpoints are equally as relevant for West African cocoa
farmers, if not more so.
See https://uk.investing.com/analysis/with-amplebeans-for-chocolate-makers-cocoa-shows-not-allcommodities-are-equal-200518292
54

ILO Convention 141 on Rural Workers’
Organizations states that smallholder farmers shouldhave the same rights as agricultural workers.
55

I.e., farmers experience the dips but don’t benefit
from the increases of market prices.
56

producer governments completely decouple thecocoa price from the commodity exchange
market, and fully set it themselves as a function of
the costs of production, including what isrequired to provide a living income. This wouldof course require collaborate within all producer
countries.
Though markets can work well to set proper
price levels when all actors have countervailingpower, it does not work for cocoa farmers. Oneof the key determinants for a farmer’s income istherefore imposed on them. This asymmetrical
power balance doesn’t just lead to low farm gate
prices, it also leads to a very skewed distributionof value in the supply chain; farmers live in
extreme poverty in a multi-billion-dollar industry.

There isn’t enough money
Another often heard argument is that companies
must follow the world market price, is that the
chocolate sector is a competitive one, and thatcompanies cannot afford to unilaterally pay
higher prices.
To provide context-

In spring of 2022, Mondelez’s CEO said theirchocolatedivision"powers
strongprofitability", which is "driven by higher
pricing”57-

In the second quarter of 2022, Hershey "mademore money than before with a significant
boost on sales that was only partially dulled
by increased costs".58-

Barry Callebaut’s latest annual earnings
report was summarised as providing “strong
volume, solid profitability and continued
good cash generation.”59

See https://seekingalpha.com/article/4503813mondelez-international-inc-mdlz-ceo-dirk-van-deput-on-q1-2022-results-earnings-call57

See https://bartalks.net/hershey-half-year-resultsprofit-boosted-despite-inflation-worries/
58

See https://www.barrycallebaut.com/sites/default/files/202204/PRR%20Barry%20Callebaut%20Group%20HalfYear%20Results%20Fiscal%20Year%202022_0.pdf
59

-

-

-

In the decade between 2010 and 2020,
Nestlé has bought back around $46 billion
USD in stockholder shares. (Nestle Global
2020)
In early 2020, the Ferrero family – Italy’s
richest family – paid itself an annual dividendof €642 million.60 That would be enough togive every single cocoa farming household
they source from a living income. It would
leave around €192 million to be paid out to its
owning family. And though the data is
missing, it’s fair to assume that other familyowned chocolate companies are also
profiting nicely from their chocolate sales.61
In 2021, Olam’s profit after tax grew to record
levels, by 179.4%,62 and Cargill reported thebiggest profit in the 156-year history of thecompany.63

It is a choice where companies spend theirmoney. Presently, most brands spend per bar of
chocolate much more on advertising campaigns
than on cocoa. Additionally, often a relatively
small part of the money paid by consumers would
be sufficient to increase farmer income
significantly.

We can’t talk about price because ofcompetition law
When all other arguments have run out, andwhen there is broad consensus that farm gate
prices are an essential part of the solution, andthat companies have a role to play, companies
often shut down the conversation citing antitrust
concerns.
Competition law is rightly designed to protect
consumers from price-fixing and other practices
that can harm them. At the same time,competition law also limits the ability to tackle theissue of low farm gate prices. As such, someSee
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jan/24/fe
rrero-scions-542m-dividend-under-fire-over-firms-taxliability
60

Forbes estimates that the Mars family wealthincreased from $60 billion to almost $94 billion from2014-2020.
61

According to their own annual report, their revenuerose by 31.2% thanks to “higher prices across mostproducts and commodities, particularly grains, rice,62

careful adaptation of antitrust legislation could
be beneficial for the sustainability of cocoa andother commodities. (Soto Abril 2021)
An increasing number of voices are arguing that
this doesn’t have to be the case, for a variety ofreasons, although it would require further work todevelop the concepts. (CPI Antitrust Chronicle
2020)
Farm gate prices are only a small part of the final
sales price of chocolate, and as such higher
prices at farm gate level do not directly have tolead to higher prices for consumers, which is what
antitrust law is largely focused on.
Eradicating poverty should also be seen as being
in the public’s interest, and as such could fallwithin a variety of anti-trust exemptions.64
But even if joint action on low farm gate prices
would not be permissible, there is no excuse forindividual companies not to engage in strategies
to raise the farm gate prices they are individually
paying to farmers.
Antitrust law provides barriers to discussing
higher farm gate prices, but ways should andprobably can be found to ensure farmers receive
a fair remuneration.

Higher prices lead to deforestation
Higher prices could lead to more deforestation
because higher prices could provide an incentive
to create new cocoa farms on former forest land.
However, the argument can also be turned on its
head: Farmers are often expanding their farms
because the cocoa price is simply too low forthem to earn a sufficient income on less hectares.
It takes up to five years from setting up a cocoa
farm until the first harvest, so it would be wrong
to assume that raising price directly translates
cotton, cocoa and edible oils in 2021”. (Emphasis
ours)
See https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/crop-giantcargill-reports-biggest-profit-in-156-year-history1.1637594
63

The German anti-competition authority’s recent
decision on the permissibility of companies setting
common standards on living wages in the banana
sector is a prime example.
64

into more production and therefore more
deforestation. In fact, deforestation rates havebeen high in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana in the lastyears regardless of whether the cocoa price has
been high or low.
In Côte d’Ivoire deforestation rates dropped
considerably in 2015, while the cocoa price wasvery high, and then increased until 2018, while
the cocoa price fell by around 30 percent. During
the same period, deforestation rates in Ghana
shifted dramatically between 2016 and 2019,
while the farm-gate price guaranteed by the state
to cocoa farmers remained stable at 7600 Cedi.
It is the responsibility of producing country
governments to ensure that national laws against
illegal deforestation are respected. At the sametime, chocolate companies also have a
responsibility as part of their environmental due
diligence to avoid that cocoa from illegally
deforested areas ends up in their supply chains which has been the case for every single major
cocoa and chocolate company. All major cocoa
and chocolate companies have signed the Cocoa
and Forests Initiative (CFI) in 2017, pledging to
end deforestation for cocoa. As most of the big
chocolate companies are by now claiming that alarge part of the cocoa is sourced “sustainably”,
they need to ensure that this cocoa does not
originate from deforested areas.

Higher prices lead to overproduction
Higher cocoa prices could indeed lead to
overproduction because they create an incentive
for farmers to produce more. However, while thisargument is often made, the volumes of cocoa
produced in different countries show that there isoften no direct link between cocoa price andincreasing production.
Cocoa prices were significantly higher during theperiod 2009/10- 2011/12 and again 2013/14 and2015/16 than in recent years. In these years andthe following seasons, cocoa production in Côte
d’Ivoire rose significantly, while it stagnated in

Ghana, significantly decreased in Indonesia, andgrew only slightly in Cameroon and Nigeria. In
Peru and Ecuador, government programs
stipulated rising cocoa production. Why could
this increase in Côte d’Ivoire happen? Was itreally the price or was it the political andeconomic situation in the country? As the industry
never tires to emphasise: the matter is complex.
Furthermore, it takes up to 5 years from planting
a cocoa tree to the first harvest, so it would benaïve to assume that price fluctuations
immediately translate to production levels. Most
farmers know from their own experience thatprices fluctuate strongly, and they do not trust
short phases of higher prices, as they know that
this could be very different when their crop is
finally ready to be harvested.

Higher prices for cocoa lead to higher
prices for chocolate
The price of cocoa only makes up a small portionof the retail price of chocolate. Several years ago,the 2015 Cocoa Barometer calculated that cocoa
farmers only receive 6-7% of the final consumer
price (Fountain, Huetz-Adams 2015).
According to a recent study by Le Basic and the
FAO on the distribution of value and costs along
European chocolate chains, cocoa farmers only
receive on average 11% of the final retail price ofa dark chocolate bar, while 70% of the total value
and 90% of the total margins generated accrue tothe last two actors in the chain: brands andretailers. (FAO/Basic 2020 p6)
For products containing only very low
percentages of chocolate (e.g. candy bars suchas KitKat, Snickers, Lion etc.) would be even moremarginal.
This implies that it would theoretically bepossible to double the price farmers receive witha very low impact on shelf prices for chocolate
products.

The Path to Living Income in Cocoa
In order for living income to become a reality forcocoa farmers, action is necessary on three
separate dimensions at the same time: good
agricultural practices, good governance policies,and good purchasing practices. Any corporate or
government effort that does not movesignificantly on all three dimensions at the sametime will not be an adequate response to thechallenge.

Good Agricultural Practices

most attention over the past two decades, asargued in the previous part of this Living Income
Compendium. For GAP to be part of a path toliving income in cocoa, there are still key issues
to be improved.
-

Concepts for GAP should include calculationsof changes of the net income of farmesr65 andan analysis of the true costs (social andecological) of the changes.

-

A shift from monoculture towards diversified
production is necessary, particularly towards
diverse agroforestry systems.66

Focussing on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)
has been the strategy that has seen by far the
Including robust calculations on the impact of the
expected productivity increases, includingtransparency on increased production costs, both forlabour and resources.
65

There is a lot of confusion about what agroforestry
is, with many different definitions currently being
used. A suggested way forward on complex/diverse66

-

GAP trainings – and input providers – should
move away from the use of highly hazardous
pesticides67 towards more holistic Integrated
Pest Management, where the use of HHPs are
reduced to a minimum.

-

Each cocoa farmer should be coached to
implement an individual farm development
plan, that is based on local specifics such as
soil types, elevation, local climate, and shadecrops, rather than on generic approaches andgeneric inputs.

-

All farmers should have access to savings
institutions, affordable credit, and inputs, sothat they can invest in and develop theirfarms. Financial inclusion mechanisms need
to be developed specifically for smallholders,and for female headed households.

the commodity market altogether, insteadreflecting the costs of production – including
the costs of a living income.
-

It is a matter of high urgency that the cocoa
producing countries start acknowledging that
supply management solutions69 are part andparcel of any successful living income policy.
As a global issue, governments should alignon common strategies to ensure transparent
policies that put farmers first.

-

These strategies should be firmly embedded
in national rural and agricultural development
strategies in cocoa producing countries70 that
focus on both food sovereignty as well as onrural infrastructure71.

-

Governments in producing and importing
countries need significantly increasedtransparency and accountability of how
public funds – including the LID – arecollected and directed to support atransformation in the cocoa sector. Supply
chain transparency is also an essential part ofthis.72-

Governments in consuming nations need tomake living income a key part of any Human
Rights and Environmental Due Diligence
regulation, requiring time-bound action plansby corporations.

-

Governments in consuming countries,
international organisations, and donors needGood Governance Policies
Increasingly, the topic of good governance isbeing discussed within the cocoa sector. Thisdimension is all about the enabling environment
within which a living income can be achieved. All
the items in this category require government
action of some sort. Many – if not most – also
require corporate action.68-

Governments of cocoa producing countries
should cooperate and work towards either a
LID in all producing countries whichguarantees a living income, or even work
towards decoupling the price of cocoa from

agroforestry systems can be found in the 2020 Cocoa
Barometer Consultation Paper on Agroforestry.
In normal times, agrochemicals were not available
and affordable to most farmers. With the current
price increases in agricultural inputs due to the Covid
pandemic and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine,
this has only become worse.
67

In fact, the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights
explicitly state that even if governments do not fulfil
their duty to protect human rights this does notprovide corporations an excuse to not fulfil their
obligations to respect human rights.
68

Supply-management instruments can range fromthe extremes of bufferstocks and national production
quotas – such as implemented in the cocoa sector formuch of the 1970s and 1980s – through to more
subtle tools such as rural development policies or69

land reform. Even an announcement by the Ghanaian
government that they will no longer pursue a
production target of 1.5 million tons would be a step
forward.
Agricultural policies should have food sovereignty
as their main focus. Despite being agricultural
powerhouses, both Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana are net
food importers. A just transition towards foodsovereign agriculture is necessary. Cash crops, suchas cocoa can play a major role in enabling thistransition.
70

Including healthcare, sanitation, and educational
facilities.
71

An extensive overview of the necessary changes inTransparency and Accountability can be found in a
separate Cocoa Barometer Consultation Paper on
this topic that is soon to be published.
72

to make available significant funds to tackle
farmerpoverty.
Additionally,
impactassessments are needed which prove that themoney is used for poverty reduction and not
to increase productivity only, so that only
industry profits from low prices.
-

Speculation on the terminal markets should
be regulated to limit speculation off the backof farmer poverty.

-

The capacity of farming communities should
be supported and enabled to self-organise tohave a bigger voice.

-

Governments in consuming countries should
review existing competition laws where theseare hindering the ability to tackle farmer
poverty (and other sustainability challenges.)-

There are two key objectives of Good Purchasing
Practices. The first is to attempt to redress theunequal distribution of risks, where at present
farmers bear virtually all the risks. The second isto redress the unequal distribution of rewards, ofwhich at present farmers receive far too little.
-

Every company should develop a time-boundliving income action plan that includes
purchasing practices – explicitly addressing
farm gate pricing. Every cocoa and chocolatecompany should set up a guaranteed living
income minimum price.

-

Corporations should engage in long-term
contracts with their suppliers, defining
specifically thelong-term purchasing
responsibilities of the company and sellingrights of the farmer/cooperative, so thatsellers are less at risk from season to season.74-

Systems should be developed that make itpossible to distribute the income of
producers over the year, thereby reducing
the vulnerability in the lean months.

-

Methods need to be developed to ensurethat extra price payments are redistributed
throughout the community, so they can help
the most vulnerable, such as women.

-

Beyond procurement practices, companies
need to critically review business functions
and resource streams such as shareholder
pay-outs,
stockbuybacks,
tax
avoidance/evasion practices, and marketing
expenditures. As long as a significant part oftheir first suppliers are living well below aliving income, any such individual enrichment
practices are entirely immoral.

Governments in producing countries andmultinationals should adhere to existing
regulations and standards in the cocoa
supply chain.

Good Purchasing Practices
The least developed of the three dimensions
described here are Good Purchasing Practices.
Although they also deal with the farm gate price73
paid to farmers, purchasing practices range
much wider.
Many of the holistic interventions that this paper
calls for are long-term processes that will lead tochange over time. However, (extreme) poverty isa daily reality for the vast majority of cocoa
farmers. They cannot afford to wait until longterm processes – such as diversified income,higher productivity, or a better rural infrastructure– have come to pass.
Most Good Purchasing Practices do not require
collective action, nor do they require a longdevelopment process; they can be implemented
The European Commission recently released areport where increasing cocoa farm-gate prices ismentioned as the first among the key solutions to
reduce poverty among cocoa farmers. A decent andacceptable price is also mentioned as a “necessary
but not a sufficient condition to address child labour”.
73

This reform should ideally be directly coupled to
KPIs of procurement teams in companies. Too often,74

on a relatively short term, by individual corporate
actors.

sustainability and procurement are seen as two
separate divisions of a company, leading to thedichotomy of farmers being engaged in poverty
alleviation programmes, whilst the company
procurement divisions are aggressively downwardly
negotiating the price they are paying.

-Companies doing sustainability programmes
should pay in-full whatever premium payment
arrangement they have with farmers toenhance their living incomes levels and put inplace systems to check these payments havetaken place.

Purchasing and Governance first
All three these dimensions – Good Agricultural
Practices, Good Governance Policies, and Good
Purchasing Practices – are needed to address thechallenge of living income effectively.
However, not all three dimensions have an equal
status. Good Agricultural Practices are only aworthwhile strategy if cocoa is sufficiently
remunerative.
Historically, increases in scale and gains inefficiency have not led to better livelihoods forfarmers, although they definitely tend to benefit
supply chain actors further downstream.
Better agricultural practices might be making iteasier to feed the world, they are not helping tobetter feed the farmer. Without a change in the
power structures first, GAP will lead to higher
profits for downstream stakeholders, not forfarmers.
As such, the first step that needs to be taken to
tackle the challenge of living income is forcorporations to start taking major steps forward
on the Good Purchasing Practices. In a similarmanner,weneedgovernments(andcorporations) making serious work on the Good
Governance.
Only when both the responsibilities ofcorporations and governments are properly
being met does it become fair to ask farmers toinvest effort and money in improving theirproductivity. The burden to first move lies
squarely with the companies and thegovernments in the cocoa sector. We cannot ask
the poorest and most vulnerable link to take thebiggest risks, with the least guarantee for reward.
In that regard, the anti-poverty approaches in thecocoa sector have had exactly the wrong
chronology for the past two decades. With anunsurprising, although unfortunate, outcome:they have failed.
What is essential to stress here, is that living
income will not be reached by project-based
approaches. Achieving a living income will
require a systemic approach, and system,change.
It is high time to tackle farmer poverty. And first to
bat are the large corporations and thegovernments in producing and consuming
countries.

Colophon
Text: Antonie C. Fountain
Citation: Fountain, Antonie C. (2022): 2022 Cocoa Barometer Living Income Compendium
Additional contribution by: Friedel Huetz-Adams (Südwind Institut), Uwe Gneiting, Kauwel Qazi (Oxfam America),
Isabelle Roger, Bram Verkerke (Solidaridad), Emmanuel Ayifah (SEND Ghana), Bart van Besien (Oxfam Belgium),
Kwame Obeng-Hinneh (Tropenbos Ghana), Maartje de Graaf (Tropenbos International), Monica Burns (Freedom
United), Evelyn Bahn, Juliane Bing (INKOTA-netzwerk)
Published by the Cocoa Barometer Consortium.
Administered by the VOICE Network.
The Cocoa Barometer Consortium consists of ABVV/Horval, Action against Child Exploitation (ACE), Be Slavery
Free, EcoCare, European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (EFFAT), Fair World Project,
Fern, Freedom United, Global Labor Justice/International Labor Rights Forum, Green America, Inades Formation,
INKOTA-netzwerk, Mighty Earth, Oxfam America, Oxfam Belgium, Oxfam Ghana, Public Eye, Rikolto, SEND Ghana,
Solidaridad Europe, Solidaridad West Africa, SÜDWIND Institut, Tropenbos International, Tropenbos Ghana, WWF
FranceContact
Requests for information can be addressed to: antonie@voicenetwork.cc
The final responsibility for the content and the views expressed in this publication lies solely with the authors.
The Cocoa Living Income Compendium is based on publicly available data as well as the off-record information
provided to the authors. The authors welcome any corrections to data provided and challenge all actors of thecocoa sector to be much more forthcoming with public data on the core challenges the sector faces.
This paper is a Consultation Paper for the 2022 Cocoa Barometer, which is to be released in December 2022. The
authors welcome any input, corrections and/or feedback on the content of this paper.
We encourage the use of (parts of) the Living Income Compendium in other publications, provided proper
references are given.
Published under Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalReferences
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