The invisible women
behind our chocolateMural Sawadogo
at CAYAT co-operative
Mariam Adjaprohibiting
harvesting
cocoa
forcedpods
child
on herlabourfarmandnear
otherAppoisso
rules

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe UK chocolate industry is worth at least£4 billion each year.1 And yet despite this,most cocoa farmers live in abject poverty.
In Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, where mostof the world’s cocoa beans are grownby approximately two million smallholder
farmers,2 a typical cocoa farmer earns
under 75p a day.

just 25 percent of
women cocoa farmers inCôte d’Ivoire own landcocoa

As a nation of chocolate lovers – consuming more per personthan any other European country3 – the UK should be leading
efforts to ensure that all cocoa farmers, especially women, canearn a living income.
Fairtrade believes that all farmers should be paid fairly for
their work and be able to earn a living income. Simply put, aliving income should cover the costs of food, water, housing,education, healthcare, transport, clothing and other essential
needs, including provision for unexpected events.
Last year, as part of our ‘She Deserves a Living Income’campaign, we published Craving a Change in Chocolate, areport that set out an ambitious agenda for action. We showed
how governments, chocolate companies, traders, retailers andshoppers can help achieve living incomes for cocoa farmers.
A year on and momentum in the chocolate industry is building
towards making this goal a reality. In this report, we share
the progress being made by Fairtrade working with others.
They include governments in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and acrossEurope, and forward-thinking chocolate companies.
As welcome as this progress has been, there is still a long
way to go, particularly for women farmers. New researchcommissioned by Fairtrade4 highlights a diverse set ofchallenges facing different groups of women working incocoa farming.
Far from being a ‘male crop’ when men do all the ‘hard work’
as commonly depicted, women’s labour is crucial for cocoa
production. When considering farming, household and othernon-farm tasks together, women’s working hours exceed
those of men by nearly 30 percent.5

	As of 2015. Fairtrade Foundation, Fairtrade and Cocoa (2016) https://www.
fairtrade.org.uk/~/media/fairtradeuk/farmers%20and%20workers/documents/
cocoa%20commodity%20briefing_online7.pdf
2	Antonie Fountain & Friedel Huetz-Adams, Cocoa Barometer 2018, http://
www.cocoabarometer.org
3	2017 data from Mintel Global New Products Database. C. Ritschel, ‘Chocolate
Production And Consumption On The Rise Across The Globe, Says New Data’
The Independent, 27 March 2018 https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/chocolate-production-easter-mintel-gnpd-europe-consumptionvegan-a8276236.html

This is set against the fact that just 25 percent of women cocoa
farmers in Côte d’Ivoire own land.6 Even those who do own
their land tend to have smaller, more remote and less productive
farms. And our new research argues that there are a further
group of women who tend to be invisible to market, researchand policy actors – those who lack land ownership.
On cocoa farms owned by male partners, women will not
usually have the documentation needed to participate in farming
and community-related decision-making – through farmers’organisations or development programmes. And because
sharecroppers (read on for more about this group of workers)
and their wives do not own the land on which they farm, they
too face similar barriers to their access and agency.
The UK Government has been a prominent champion of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With only ten years
left, the ambitious goals and targets enshrined in the SDGs to
end poverty, support small-scale farmers and provide decent
work for all will not be met unless urgent action is taken to
support these ‘invisible’ women.

1	D. Skalidou, Cocoa and the ‘invisible’ women (2019) https://www.fairtrade.org.
uk/~/media/FairtradeUK/What%20is%20Fairtrade/Documents/cocoa-and-theinvisible-women.pdf
5	R. Vargas Hill and M. Vigneri, ‘Mainstreaming gender sensitivity in cash cropmarket supply chains’, ESA Working Paper No.11-08 (2011)	ICCO May 2018 Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics https://www.icco.org/
about-us/icco-news/389-may-2018-quarterly-bulletin-of-cocoa-statistics.html
6	Antonie Fountain & Friedel Huetz-Adams, Cocoa Barometer 2018, http://www.
cocoabarometer.org
43

Summary of recommendations• We’ve put together an updated agenda for actionthat builds on the progress that’s been made overthe last year towards a living income in cocoa. But it
also recognises the challenges facing these women.

• We renew our call on governments, chocolatecompanies, traders, and retailers alike to set
ambitious, timetabled commitments to reach a living
income in cocoa.

• We also call for specific action to address thesituation of women cocoa farmers, especiallythose who are particularly disempowered, or invisible.
All policy and programme interventions in cocoa
should address the challenges facing women cocoa
farmers, with tailored action plans and strategies.

Recommendations to the UK
Government:

Recommendations to the UK
chocolate industry:

1. Play a leadership role and join the Alliance on
Living Incomes in Cocoa by the end of 2020.

We call on UK-based chocolate companies,
traders and supermarkets to:

2. Support Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD)
in cocoa.

• A t a global level, Fairtrade is calling on theEuropean Union (EU) to enact legislation that
requires all companies placing cocoa or cocoa
products on the EU market to enact mandatory due
diligence on human rights, child labour and theeffects of cocoa production on the environment.

• T hough Britain is leaving the EU, we urge the UK

Government to bring forward HRDD regulations
that align with these proposals, and include similarbilateral arrangements in any new trade deals withcocoa origin governments.

3. Make sure interventions on the groundreach women.

• T he Department for International Development(DFID) should put achieving living incomes andwages at the heart of its Economic Development
Strategy, supporting programmes and businesses
that take living income seriously.

• T his report calls on DFID, working with thegovernments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and the
chocolate industry, to design, implement and pilot
gender-sensitive programmes that would improve
women’s economic empowerment.

4• Join the Alliance on Living Incomes in Cocoa.
• Support the introduction of HRDD legislation in

the UK and across Europe, as set out on the left.

• Design and implement gender-sensitive

programmes that would help enhance theeconomic empowerment of women cocoa farmers,
as set out on the left.

• Commit to sourcing their cocoa on Fairtrade terms
as a first step.

• Commit to the goal of ensuring that cocoa farmers
receive a living income by 2030.

Rosine Bekoin leads her women’s association
to earn extra income from cocoa by creating
Ebrottié Tanoh Florentin, Generalof CEAAforand
farmerhomeSecretary
made chocolate
thecocoalocal market

5Chapter 1 – Making progress
towards living incomes in cocoa
There is growing momentum towards theneed to move to a fully sustainable cocoa
supply chain that provides living incomesfor cocoa farmers. This year, progress has
been achieved by both Fairtrade andothers working in the chocolate industry.
Here’s how:Tougher requirements from Fairtrade
Increasing the Fairtrade Minimum Price and Fairtrade Premium
Fairtrade has been working hard to secure a better deal for the
farmers who grow the cocoa in our chocolate. On 1 Octoberlast year, we increased the Minimum Price and Premiumby 20 percent each. The Minimum Price acts as a safety net
for farmers when market prices fall, while allowing them tobenefit when market prices rise. For cocoa, the Minimum Priceis now $2,400 per metric tonne at the point of export (known
as Freight on Board, or FOB). Meanwhile, the Premium helps tobuild strong and viable co-operatives that can respond to theirmembers’ needs and strengthen them as long-term business
partners for buyers. That is now $240 per metric tonne, thehighest fixed premium of any certification scheme.
Given today’s cocoa prices in Côte d’Ivoire, this means the
Minimum Price is kicking in to give an additional 17 percent.7
Fairtrade producer organisations are required to forward thisadditional payment onto their farmer members. Fairtradeis the only certification scheme to guarantee thesemeasures.
Nearly 60 companies source Fairtrade cocoa in the UK and
are now subject to the new Minimum Price and Premium
requirements. There is a huge range of Fairtrade chocolate soldthroughout the UK’s high streets. In addition to 100 percent
Fairtrade companies such as Divine Chocolate, major highstreet brands source high volumes of Fairtrade cocoa, including
Mars, Nestlé and Green & Black’s. All UK supermarkets sellbranded Fairtrade chocolate and many supermarkets havesignificant commitments in their own-label ranges too. For
example, Co-op’s chocolate confectionery range is 100 percent

	For the period 1 October 2019 – 31 March 2020. After that a new set ofgovernment pricing will apply
8	These figures have been converted into £ from € figures available in the FI
Annual Report 2018-2019 https://www.fairtrade.net/library/2018-19-annualreport-choosing-a-fairer-future-through-trade9	Fairtrade International Living Income Strategy (2017) https://files.fairtrade.
net/2017-10-23_Fairtrade_Living_Income_strategy_EN.pdf
10	Fairtrade International announcement on Living Income Reference Price (2019)https://www.fairtrade.net/news/fairtrade-leads-the-fight-for-decent-incomes-forcocoa-farmers

Fairtrade and Waitrose & Partners have just converted theirconfectionery range to contain 100 percent Fairtrade cocoa.
Meanwhile, retailers like Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s,
Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi also use Fairtrade cocoa in many of
their own-brand lines.
Over the past five years, Fairtrade cocoa co-operatives haveearned £107m in Premium to spend on projects of their choicethat benefit their businesses and communities. In 2018 alone,
Fairtrade cocoa farmer co-operatives earned nearly £39m in
Premium to invest in their communities and businesses.8
Living income strategy
Fairtrade’s living income strategy9 (see right) sets out acomprehensive approach bringing together tactics such as
raising productivity, farm efficiency and Fairtrade sales. Central
to success is increasing the price farmers receive. Fairtrade has
introduced the Fairtrade Living Income Reference Price (seeright), which we estimate to be $2,200 per metric tonne at farm
gate in Côte d’Ivoire and $2,100 in Ghana.10
The Living Income Reference Price indicates the price needed
for an average farmer household with a viable farm size and an
adequate productivity level to make a living income from thesales of their crop. The price has been established after extensive
research and consultation with stakeholders including cocoa
farmers, traders, companies, researchers, civil society andgovernments.11
The Living Income Reference Price is not a mandatory
requirement, but is Fairtrade’s assessment of the target pricerequired – in combination with other interventions – to secure aliving income. It helps us to see how close different actors areto the goal of living income.
Since last summer, Oxfam Fair Trade12 and Belvas13 in Belgium
have both committed to the Fairtrade Living Income Reference
Price. Tony’s Chocolonely, a new brand in the UK market,
committed to paying the revised Living Income Reference Pricefrom October last year. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade ‘Way to Go’
chocolate bar launched in Lidl stores across Belgium and theNetherlands last year, which pays additional money on top of
the Fairtrade Premium to the Kuapa Kokoo cocoa co-operativein Ghana.1476	More information on how the Living Income Reference Price is calculated
can be found here: https://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/
content/2009/news/releases_statements/2018-12_ExplanatoryNote_
FairtradeLivingIncomeReferencePriceCocoa.pdf
12	Oxfam-Magasins du monde Bite-to-Fight https://www.oxfammagasinsdumonde.
be/blog/video/bite-to-fight/#.Xk7HcS2caek
13	Belvas Cocoa Direct Program https://www.directcocoa.org/fr/accueil (in French)
14	https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2019/09/19/Lidl-pays-Ghanafarmers-extra-premium-with-new-super-fair-bars
11

Fairtrade’s Living Income Strategy explained
Our strategy works to close the income gap through seven interventions:
1. Sustainablepricing:

A Living Income Reference Price indicates the price needed for full-time
farmers with adequate, sustainable productivity levels* to earn a living
income. We have calculated Living Income Reference Prices for West
African cocoa, and vanilla in Madagascar and Uganda. And we areworking on coffee.
A Living Income Reference Price is based on the following key parameters:• Cost of a decent standard of living (living income benchmark)• S ustainable yields (productivity benchmark)• Viable farm size (to fully employ the available household labour)• C ost of sustainable production (in order to achieve above-mentioned yields)* The cost of sustainable production will include the cost of a fair
remuneration of hired labour on smallholder farms. Hence, the Living
Income Reference Price would cover both a living income for the farmer
household as well as a living wage for hired workers.

2. Fairtradesales:The more farmers sell on Fairtrade terms, the larger the impact ofsustainable pricing. Fairtrade works in more than 20 countries to raise
consumer awareness and promote demand for Fairtrade products.

3. Sustainable
farm yields:

There is still a lot of room for improving productivity and resilience onmost smallholder farms. When farmers can grow the same amount on
less land, they free up space for other crops to supplement their income
and reduce their dependency on a single product. Boosting productivity
requires investment, which the Fairtrade Premium can provide (see below).

4. Farm cost
efficiency:

We are developing tools to help farmers track their actual production
costs and revenues, equipping them to make informed businessdecisions and become more efficient farmers.

5. Producer
organisation
efficiency:

Fairtrade producer networks support co-operatives to improve theirgovernance and management capacity, so they are strong and reliablebusiness partners, create value for their members and gain access toimportant additional services such as loans.

6. Strategic
Premiumuse:

Small-scale producer organisations often invest their Premium funds
into productivity and quality improvement, supporting their members toachieve sustainable yields. They can also choose to invest in things likebusiness development, better service delivery or processing facilities
that expand farmers’ share of the value chain.

7. An enabling
environment:£

Government policy, including aid strategy and business regulation, hasa critical role to play. We are campaigning alongside like-minded
companies, governments and civil society to make living incomes forfarmers the norm.

7

Women’s School of Leadership
We continue to see results coming from our Women’s Schoolof Leadership, which aims to empower women and increase
women’s leadership in Fairtrade co-operatives. Set up by
Fairtrade Africa and initially funded by Co-op and Compass
Group UK & Ireland, it has been supporting women to gain
practical skills and greater confidence. Through training,
women are gaining the power to take ownership of their lives
through their increased capacity to make decisions, to takecontrol and to manage resources. The training has also meant
supporting the women to actively participate and voluntarily
take on leadership roles in producer organisations and intheir communities.

So far, the programme has reached nearly 1,000 women andover 200 men, from more than 20 communities across sevenco-operatives in Côte d’Ivoire. The women have established a
Women’s Association in each of the seven co-operatives, andhave submitted proposals in each co-operative for incomegenerating projects. They have also fought and won access toland to grow their own crops, and worked together to run
savings groups that strengthen their income in the long-term.

Leading the way
Rosine Bekoin is a graduate of the Women’s Schoolof Leadership, and Secretary of the Women’s Society
at CAYAT cocoa co-operative in Côte d’Ivoire.
Leading the way, standing out and speaking up
appears to come naturally to Rosine. But it hasn’t
always been that way. As a graduate of the Fairtrade
Africa Women’s School of Leadership, Rosine trained
for this. She picked up skills and ideas at the School toshare with other women in the co-operative to improvetheir situation. Rosine believes firmly in the power ofwomen to play a key role bringing communities outof poverty.

8

She says: ‘They [lots of women] don’t believe they
can do it. If you ask them who is the head of thefamily, they say the man. Why can’t you be the headof the family, a woman? If you can save money, you
can be the head of the family… Why are you walking
behind? Put yourself in front, women!’But even with these changes and the women’s
determination, Rosine knows there is still a long way togo. It’s not a daunting thought for her. She dreams of
seeing women go right to the top: ‘And then, to haveour children, girls too, to work in their offices, like as
we see on the TV, the ministers, the President – why
can’t a female producer be the President too? We
can do it.’

West Africa Cocoa Programme
In recognition of the specific challenges facing cocoa farmers,
Fairtrade established the West Africa Cocoa Programme in2016 to provide further support to them. The programme helps
co-operatives to become stronger, more inclusive and viablebusinesses that are better equipped to respond to theirmembers’ needs. It is helping thousands of farmers by giving
co-operatives technical support and training, which
supplements the financial benefits they receive through sales
under Fairtrade terms.

This means farmers have the resources to put the training into
action and are able to purchase whatever resources, tools,
transport or equipment they need to run their farms. Fairtrade iscarrying out monitoring and evaluation to assess the impact of
its long-term goal of increasing farmers’ incomes. While theproject is ongoing, there are positive indications that this support
is helping farmers to improve their yields, a key element of ourliving income strategy.

Pauline Ahin’da attending women’s literacy class in
Premium-built agricultural school, a service delivered by
CAPRESSA cocoa co-operative, Apprompron, Côte d’Ivoire

Piloting new approaches with Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s are working jointly with Fairtrade,
Sustainable Food Lab and Barry Callebaut on an
innovative pilot in Côte d’Ivoire to improve thelivelihoods of cocoa farmers through Fairtrade pricing,
improved farming practices and access to livelihoodimproving assets.
Ben & Jerry’s already source Fairtrade ingredients fortheir ice cream, but wanted to go further to address thesystemic problems of low incomes for cocoa farmers.
And so 2020 has seen the launch of a new phase of
the programme, which seeks to offset carbon while
ensuring livelihood gains for farmer households, andespecially women.

The programme has provided packages of shadetrees for the farms and cookstoves for the households,
the latter alleviating the need to cut down forest for
firewood, and reducing the health risks of smoke.
Women will be able to save money by not spending on
cooking fuel, and will also save time that used to be
spent collecting firewood. Meanwhile, the shade trees
prolong the lifespan of their cocoa plantations. Thanks
to Ben & Jerry’s Fairtrade sourcing and commitment
to Fairtrade Africa’s West Africa Cocoa Programme,
women in the co-operatives covered by the pilot havereceived training and report feeling more empowered.
Moreover, always striving to ensure the best outcome
for the farmers in their supply chains, Ben & Jerry’s
are now working with Fairtrade to further promote thewomen’s groups in the co-operatives through bespokebusiness support.

9Campaigning for change
We launched our ‘She Deserves a Living Income’ campaign
during Fairtrade Fortnight 2019, calling on everyone to playtheir part in making living incomes a reality for cocoa farmers,
especially women. The campaign made a huge noise. There
were 4,000 campaigner events reaching one million people,
10,000 new supporters joining us on our journey, andbusinesses and MPs making their voices heard on the issue. A
total of 75 MPs attended our campaign launch in Parliament.
Meanwhile, on 7 August 2019, Côte d’Ivoire’s Independence
Day, Fairtrade campaigners joined Fairtrade Foundation staff at
10 Downing Street to hand in a petition with more than 50,000
signatures. It called for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to backcocoa farmers fighting for a fairer deal through UK-funded aid
projects, business and human rights legislation, and by joining
international efforts that unite governments, chocolatecompanies and civil society to achieve living incomes.

The Secretary of State for DFID, Alok Sharma MP, praised
Fairtrade’s campaign in his written response to our petition andnoted a number of areas of existing DFID support that‘encourages the growth of more ‘for benefit’ businesses in thecocoa supply chain.’ While this work is welcome, we encourage
DFID to explicitly place achieving living incomes and wages at
the heart of its Economic Development Strategy, supporting
programmes and businesses that are taking demonstrable
steps towards this goal through their purchasing practices andother interventions, and excluding those that do not. Stronger
signals on the need for living incomes and wages from DFID
would boost ‘first mover’ action by businesses across thecocoa industry and beyond.

Harriett Baldwin MP (left), former DFID and Foreign Office Minister, with Awa Traoré,
Director of CAYAT co-operative, at the Fairtrade Fortnight 2019 parliamentary reception

10Growing momentum for change in the
chocolate world
In the rest of the chocolate world, a number of promising
initiatives are building momentum towards the collective action
we need to achieve the greatest difference for cocoa farmers.
Living Income Differential
Farmer incomes will increase further next year with thegovernments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana’s remarkable policy
decision in June last year to introduce a ‘Living Income
Differential’. From 1 October 2020, the governments’intervention will see farm gate prices for cocoa increase to$1,820 per metric tonne.
Fairtrade strongly welcomed this announcement.15 As proud
as we are of our impact, since the majority of cocoa producedin Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana is not Fairtrade certified, thegovernments’ intervention is a real opportunity to drive change
at scale for farmers in the two countries.
We should note that the price of $1,820 still leaves some way
to go by comparison with Fairtrade’s definition of a Living
Income Reference Price at $2,200 per metric tonne at farm
gate in Côte d’Ivoire and $2,100 in Ghana.
Alliance on Living Incomes in Cocoa
Fairtrade is also part of a promising new initiative on living
incomes in cocoa due to launch this year, bringing together
European governments, chocolate companies, traders,retailers, civil society organisations and certifiers.
The Alliance on Living Incomes in Cocoa now has the supportof the German, Dutch, Swiss and Belgian governments, traders
Barry Callebaut and Olam, the chocolate company Ferrero,
Rainforest Alliance and the VOICE Network. The Alliance aims
to contribute to systemic change in the cocoa sector to ensurethat farmers receive a living income. It will seek to encourage
collaborative action, both to achieve greater impact at scale
and to create efficiency by avoiding duplication, promote policy
dialogue and provide expertise. The Alliance will build on
already existing organisations and initiatives.
Beyond Chocolate in Belgium

Fairtrade joins calls for HRDD in cocoa
Fairtrade was pleased to join Mars, Mondelēz International,
Barry Callebaut, Rainforest Alliance and the VOICE Network incalling for strong new EU regulations to ensure cocoa
imported into the EU is truly sustainable for people and ourplanet. Most critically, for Fairtrade, the joint position paper
states the ultimate aim is a fully sustainable cocoa supply
chain that provides living incomes for cocoa farmers.17
As by far the largest importer and consumer of cocoa in theworld – the majority of it from West Africa – the European
countries between them have a greater ability than any otherconsumer market to drive change in the cocoa sector. It also
has a clear duty and the opportunity to take responsibility anddemonstrate leadership, including through legislative action toaddress these issues. A Europe-wide approach to due diligence
will benefit all actors in the supply chain in terms of a clear andconsistent set of rules and common intent.
It will be important that the burden of costs of implementationof any legislation are not passed to farmers who are living inpoverty. Well-written legislation is designed with a multistakeholder approach that is inclusive of governments, civilsociety, companies and, critically, farmers. Giving farmers avoice in their future is central to Fairtrade’s own structures andconsultative processes, and we expect to see this in any
proposed legislation.18
In our recommendations, we set out our proposals for how thisprogress can be built on, and the role the UK Government andUK chocolate companies should play. But as welcome as thisprogress has been, there is still a long way to go towards
achieving living incomes for cocoa farmers.
Retailers in Germany sign voluntary agreement to promoteliving incomes and wages
In January 2020, a group of large German supermarkets,
including Aldi and Lidl, signed a voluntary joint agreement
pledging to work towards living incomes and wages in theiragricultural supply chains, including cocoa. Convened by theGerman government, the agreement sees retailers pledge to anumber of actions. These include embedding living incomes
and wages into their sustainability policies, making their supply
chains more transparent and increasing traceability, assessing
income and wage gaps, and supporting responsible sourcing.19

One such initiative is the Belgian government’s Beyond
Chocolate partnership. This is made up of Fairtrade Belgium
and a number of Belgium-based chocolate companies, traders
and retailers. Signatories to this exciting and ambitious
partnership have committed to enabling cocoa farmers to earna living income by 2030. It also commits the partners to ending
deforestation due to cocoa-growing for the Belgian chocolate
sector by the same date. By 2025, all chocolate produced and/or sold in Belgium will be part of a certification scheme,
including but not limited to Fairtrade.16	https://www.fairtrade.net/news/fairtrade-supports-implementation-of-a-livingincome-differential
16	Beyond Chocolate Initiative https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/
beyondchocolate17	Joint position paper on the EU’s policy and regulatory approach to cocoa (2019)https://www.voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Joint-positionpaper-on-the-EUs-policy-and-regulatory-approach-to-cocoa.pdf
15	Fairtrade International blog on the HRDD joint position https://www.fairtrade.
net/news/why-fairtrade-supports-strong-euregulations-cocoa
19	Commitment by German Retailers Working Group on Living Income and Living
Wages https://www.nachhaltige-agrarlieferketten.org/aktuelles/living-incomearbeitsgruppe-gemeinsame-erklaerung/ (in German)
18

11

Salimata Diakite cooking at her family
home in Abengourou, Côte d’Ivoire

12Chapter 2 – The story ofthe ‘invisible women’
Unfortunately, the unpalatable truth in thecocoa industry is that the production of this
precious commodity rests all too often on
inequality, injustice and exploitation. The
average cocoa farmer in Ghana earns around$1 per day (around 75p), with farmers in Côte
d’Ivoire earning less than $1 per day.20 In
both cases, this is well below the extreme
poverty line of $1.90 per day (about £1.40).
And even further behind the amount a living
income is estimated to be – US$2.50 (about£1.86) per person per day in Côte d’Ivoire
and US$2.16 (about £1.60) per person per
day in Ghana.21 This already unacceptablesituation is even worse for a large number ofwomen farmers.
In Côte d’Ivoire, women carry out 68 percent of the labour
involved in cocoa farming and yet the Africa Development
Bank estimates that they earn just 21 percent of the income
generated.22 Research by the KIT Royal Tropical Institute has
shown that female-headed households in Ghana have arounda third less income than male-headed households.23

cocoa

women carry out 68 percent of thelabour in cocoa farming, but earnaround 21 percent of the income.
	Estimated figures are based on best available evidence at the time of
publication. Conversions into £ are approximations as they are based on 2018exchange rate (exchange rates fluctuate and therefore $ are most accurate)21
	D. Taylor, Craving a Change in Chocolate, Fairtrade Foundation (2019)https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/~/media/FairtradeUK/Resources%20Library/
Fairtrade%20Fortnight%202019/Craving%20a%20Change%20in%20
Chocolate%20-%20February%202019.pdf
22	African Development Bank Economic Empowerment of African Women throughEquitable Participation in Agricultural Value Chains (2015) https://www.afdb.org/
fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Economic_Empowerment_
of_African_Women_through_Equitable_Participation_in___Agricultural_Value_
Chains.pdf)
20

We commissioned new research to better understand thesituation facing women cocoa farmers. We published thisseparately so that the detailed findings are available to thoseworking in the cocoa sector.24 Far from being a ‘male crop’when men do all the ‘hard work’ as commonly depicted,
women’s labour is crucial for cocoa production. Men are able
to intensify their cocoa farming, and expand and upgrade
as farmers, because they rely on women (single or multiple
spouses, sisters, daughters and other younger women in
their care) growing food crops and doing the household work,
while also undertaking certain cocoa farming tasks.
These tasks include weeding and preparing the land forplanting; purchasing seeds and seedlings; planting cocoa
seedlings; caring for young trees and intercropping of foodcrops while the trees are young; harvesting and plucking;pod-breaking; carrying the beans to the homestead or depot;
fermenting and drying, and bagging the dried beans. In fact,
there are few tasks that are mostly undertaken by men alone.25

women spend 1.5 more times
on domestic (Unpaid) work thanmen – 26 hours vs 10.
Meanwhile, it has been estimated that women spend on
average 1.5 more times on domestic (unpaid) work than men(26 hours vs 10). And when considering household, farming
and other non-farm tasks together, women’s working hours
exceed those of men by nearly 30 percent.26

	Median total income is US$1,153 a year for female-headed households,
compared to US$1,740 a year for a typical male-headed household. Marcelo
Tyszler, Roger Bymolt and Anna Laven, Analysis of the income gap of cocoa
producing households in Ghana, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, (2018) https://cocoainitiative.org/knowledge-centre-post/analysis-of-the-income-gap-ofcocoa-producing-households-in-ghana24	This detailed study is published separately by the Fairtrade Foundation. D.
Skalidou, Cocoa and the ‘invisible’ women (2019), https://www.fairtrade.org.
uk/~/media/FairtradeUK/What%20is%20Fairtrade/Documents/cocoa-and-theinvisible-women.pdf
25	S. Barrientos and A.O. Bobie, Promoting gender equality in the cocoachocolate value chain: opportunities and challenges in Ghana, GDI Working
Paper, 2016-006 (2016)26
	R. Vargas Hill and M. Vigneri, Mainstreaming gender sensitivity in cash cropmarket supply chains, ESA Working Paper No.11-08 (2011)23

13

Despite their central role in cocoa production, women face
many more constraints than men, too, both as landowners orlabour providers.

sharecropping explained

Just 25 percent of women cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire
own land.27 Even those who do own their land tend to havesmaller, more remote and less productive farms. The small
size of their land makes them less able to achieve economies
of scale. Because land rights tend to be weaker if land is left
fallow for long periods of time, women facing greater land
tenure insecurity may not be able to leave their land to recover,undermining its fertility and therefore future profitability.28 These
women also tend to have less ability to mobilise workers(whether it be unpaid labour from other family members, orwage labourers), and face more restrictions in accessing inputs,
extension services, training and credit. As a result, they also
have lower returns from cocoa production.29 Women who do
not have a partner to share the farm work need to hire morecasual labour, increasing their costs.

agreements• Sareharecropping
widespread in cocoa

production, at least in Ghana.33
Under these agreements,
land-owners leave the careof already developed farms(ie already bearing fruits) tosharecroppers who receive
one third of the crop in
exchange for maintaining
the farm.

usually• Sharecroppers,
migrant farmers from poorer

But special attention needs to be directed at an additionalgroup of women who tend to be invisible to market, researchand policy actors – those who lack land ownership.

areas (such as the northernand eastern regions of Ghana,Burkina Faso and Togo), canbe considered both tenant
farmers and labourers,‘dependent yet independent’,at the same time.34

On cocoa farms owned by men, their wives will not usually
have the right documentation – known as a farm passbook –that not only provides rights to the farming land and the profits
from the harvest (ie access to tangible economic resources)
but also visibility. That means a lack of access to co-operative
membership, agricultural extension services, inputs, training,financial credit and premium payments from certification
schemes.30 It also means they are not participating in farming
and community-related decision-making – through being partof farmers’ organisations or development interventions, forexample. As a result of all this, women’s agency and accessare significantly constrained.
The wives of farmers who are sharecroppers can similarly lackaccess and agency. Sharecroppers, usually migrant farmers
from poorer areas neighbouring the cocoa lands, receive
one third of the cocoa crop in exchange for performing all
the necessary production tasks of a mature farm (ie spraying,weeding and harvesting).31 But they do not own the landon which they farm – it is owned by others. As such,sharecroppers and their wives face similar barriers to theiraccess and agency.
Added to this, though the practice appears to be fading awayamong the current generation of cocoa farmers, it remains
common for farmers who are sharecroppers to have morethan one wife or partner. These women are seen as providing
additional (unpaid) labour, but some research suggests that thesecond or ‘junior’ wife may have little choice or control and areparticularly disempowered.32£

	Antonie Fountain & Friedel Huetz-Adams, Cocoa Barometer 2018, https://www.
voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-Cocoa-Barometer.pdf
28	M. Goldstein and C. Udry, ‘The profits of power: land rights and agriculturalinvestment in Ghana’, p.3
29
	R.Vargas Hill and M. Vigneri, Mainstreaming gender sensitivity in cash cropmarket supply chains, ESA Working Paper No.11-08 (2011)30
	S. Smith, ‘Assessing the gender impacts of Fairtrade’, Social Enterprise Journal,
vol. 9, no.1 (2013), p.102; R. Meinzen-Dick et al., ‘Women’s land rights as apathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence’,
Agricultural Systems, vol.172 (2019), p.72; D. Skalidou, In or out?: Exploring
selection processes of farmers in cocoa sustainability standards and certification
programmes in Ghana, PhD Thesis, University of East Anglia (2018)14

being paid their share as‘labourers’, but also paying
over a share of the crop as‘tenants’.35 This ambiguity
often renders sharecroppers(and those farming with them,such as wives and otherfamily members) invisible toresearch and policy actors.

Even ambitious goals to enable cocoa farmers to achieve aliving income will fall short without full consideration of thesituation of invisible women within intervention strategies.
This will require specific interventions, tailored to address thedifferent challenges they face.
In the next section, we set out revised recommendations for
how the UK Government and UK chocolate companies canwork towards living incomes for all, and in particular womencocoa farmers and workers.
	T. Takane, ‘Incentives embedded in institutions: the case of share contracts in
Ghanaian cocoa production’, The Developing Economies, vol. 38, no. 3 (2000).
p.374; M.H. Knudsen, and N. Fold, ‘Land distribution and acquisition practices
in Ghana’s cocoa frontier: The impact of a state-regulated marketing system’,Land Use Policy, vol. 28, no. 2 (2011), p. 378
32
	D. Skalidou, In or out?: Exploring selection processes of farmers in cocoa
sustainability standards and certification programmes in Ghana. PhD Thesis,
University of East Anglia (2018)33
 S. Boni, Clearing the Ghanaian forest. Institute of African Studies, University ofLegon, Ghana (2005); T. Takane, ‘Incentives embedded in institutions: the caseof share contracts in Ghanaian cocoa production’, The Developing Economies,
vol. 38, no. 3, (2000). p.374
34
	A. Robertson, ‘On sharecropping’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute, vol.15, no.3 (1980), p.411
35
A. Robertson, ‘On sharecropping’, p.411
31

27

£

they can be seen
• Tasherefore,a hybrid between the two,

Women working on a community farm in
Kotobi, Côte d’Ivoire, founded by graduatesof the Women’s School of Leadership

15

Chapter 3 – Our recommendations
The ambitious goals and targets to end
poverty, support small-scale farmers andprovide decent work for all enshrined in
the SDGs will not be met unless there isurgent action to support farmers in someof the poorest parts of the world and makeliving incomes possible for cocoa farmers,
especially the ‘invisible women’ of cocoa.
This large group of ‘in-work poor’ – there
are estimated to be two million cocoa
farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana36 –need to be prioritised by decision-makers.
We renew our call on governments, chocolatecompanies, traders, and retailers alike to set ambitious,
timetabled commitments to achieve living incomesin cocoa.
We also call for specific action to address the situationof women cocoa farmers, especially those who areparticularly disempowered, or invisible. All policy andprogramme interventions in cocoa should address thechallenges facing women cocoa farmers, with tailoredaction plans and strategies.
Below, we outline an updated agenda for action.

Recommendations to the UK
government
1. Play a leadership role – join the Allianceon Living Incomes in Cocoa
As highlighted earlier in this report, the Alliance on Living
Incomes in Cocoa now has the support of the German, Dutch,
Swiss and Belgian governments, as well as a growing numberof cocoa traders and companies, certifiers and CSOs, including
Fairtrade. The Alliance aims to contribute to systemic change inthe cocoa sector to ensure that farmers receive a living income.

	Antonie Fountain & Friedel Huetz-Adams, Cocoa Barometer 2018, http://
www.cocoabarometer.org
37
	The full proposal can be read at https://www.voicenetwork.eu/wp-content/
uploads/2019/12/Joint-position-paper-on-the-EUs-policy-and-regulatoryapproach-to-cocoa.pdf
3616• We urge the UK Government to join this international
initiative by the end of 2020.
• W
 e encourage the Alliance and its members to takecollaborative action to address the challenges facing
women cocoa farmers, including the invisible women
this report has identified.

2. Support HRDD in cocoa
Fairtrade is calling on the EU to enact legislation that requires allcompanies placing cocoa or cocoa products on the EU market
to enact mandatory due diligence on human rights, child labour
and the effects of cocoa production on the environment. We
have co-signed a joint position paper in support of this withtrader Barry Callebaut, chocolate companies Mars andMondelēz International, certifiers and CSOs.37
We are calling on the EU to:a) Establish a regulatory and policy framework within the
EU to ensure that companies conduct human rights andenvironmental due diligence in their supply chains. This
will help encourage sustainable cocoa production, support
consumer trust and help sustain market demand for cocoafrom West Africa over the long-term.
b) Aim to negotiate bilateral agreements with cocoa origin
governments to create the frameworks necessary to achieve
the aim of sustainable cocoa, and provide financial andtechnical support to those governments to do so.
We are calling on the EU to begin a consultative process
around due diligence regulation on cocoa this year with a draft
regulation to be published no later than the end of 2020.
Though Britain is leaving the EU, we urge the UK
Government to bring forward HRDD regulations that alignwith those being proposed at the EU, and include similarbilateral arrangements in any new trade deals with cocoa
origin governments.

Salimata Diakite (right), graduate of the Women’s School of
Leadership, discusses income generation plans with membersof her women’s association, Abengourou, Côte d’Ivoire

3. Interventions on the ground – how to makesure they reach women
Ambitious goals to enable cocoa farmers to achieve a living
income will fall short without specific interventions to reach
women cocoa farmers.
We renew our call for DFID to put achieving living
incomes and wages at the heart of its Economic
Development Strategy, supporting programmes andbusinesses that take living income seriously.
In addition, below we set out suggestions for how donors
such as DFID, working with the governments of Côte
d’Ivoire and Ghana, and the chocolate industry, could
design and implement gender-sensitive programmes thatwould help enhance women’s economic empowerment.
a) Programme design – what do programmes need tolook like to reach invisible women?
The most effective programmes will not ‘bolt on’ action to
support women but develop gender-sensitive theories ofchange to critically think about the design, implementationand evaluation of their initiatives and programmes. This will
be needed if interventions are to effectively reach and engage
all women involved in cocoa production, including those whoare hard-to-reach and especially disempowered. Programme
design should also consider how women with different degrees ofaccess and agency can potentially benefit from the intervention.
Programme design needs to be conducted in a participatory
process together with all women involved in cocoa production.
This will ensure that programmes are better aligned with theirneeds, account for female-specific barriers, and enhance
women’s ownership and empowerment over the programme.

It is important that women are not inadvertently blocked fromtaking part in programmes – barriers to participation need tobe accounted for. For example, land ownership or entitlement
should not be a requirement for women to participate. Other
factors such as education levels, gender-based violence or
reproductive health should be identified and accounted for.
A process of permission and trust-building is likely to beimportant or may be necessary in order to open up the
space to engage more marginalised women. If women are
marginalised and hidden, men are most likely to resist their
participation. This should include working with men to build
awareness and support for gender equality, at the farm,community, co-operative or producer organisation level.
b) Programme implementation – turning theory into
practice
It is not enough to increase access in theory to economic
opportunities. Women need to be able to access them inpractice, by enhancing their agency over those resources –their self-confidence, leadership and decision-making abilities.
Given that women involved in cocoa production are far more
likely to lack land holdings than men, it is crucial that womenin roles of unpaid family (for example spouses or daughters),
sharecroppers or wage labour are assisted too. In the Ghanaian
context, encouraging husbands to hand out passbooks towives can also lead to female access and agency enhancement.
Interventions should ensure that women lacking access to land
still get access to other resources, such as premium payments,
inputs and credit.38 Similarly, activities that can boost one’s

38

	S. Barrientos, ‘Women in cocoa production: where is the gender equity?’, The
Guardian, 8 March 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/
women-cocoa-production-gender-equity, (accessed 04 September 2019)17

agency such as training and extension services should be open
to all those engaged in cocoa farming, regardless of membershipstatus – thereby ensuring that all women can take part.39
Interventions should explicitly focus on women without,
however, excluding men. Programmes should take genderdifferentiated roles and opportunities into account. Evidence
suggests that getting men’s support is critical to, and often
necessary for, the success of gender-responsive projects.40
In addition, effective communication regarding participation
eligibility should be used to engage hard-to-reach women,
tackle misconceptions (such as around their own eligibility) andensure their participation in programme design and activities.
c) Ideas to pilot
There is an urgent need for innovative ideas to enhance theaccess and agency of women cocoa farmers. Below, we put
forward two suggestions that we think could work well, butwould need proper testing through pilots.
1. Improve women’s access and agency

However, at least in the short-term, women-only groups may
be more restricted by a lack of knowledge, communication andresources than mixed producer organisations. It is therefore
important to directly support women’s organisations withworking capital and technical support.45d) Gender mainstreaming
In addition to the ideas put forward above for specificprogrammes to support women cocoa farmers, more could bedone to mainstream gender in all cocoa-related policies andprogrammes.
Recruiting and training women as service providers (such asdelivering agricultural inputs, training or credit), or running ascholarship scheme for girls have proven to be effective ways
to improve the gender balance in service delivery.
There is evidence that the Gender National Services in Côte
d’Ivoire46 was effective in creating awareness on gender issues
and helping mainstream gender across national policies. Theremay be value in the cocoa boards of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana
creating a specific body aimed at gender mainstreaming.

Quotas could be used to increase the representation of womenand to ensure their participation in management decisions.
This could apply to user groups, rural producer organisations,service provider organisations, governing boards and policymaking bodies.41
Women-targeted unconditional or conditional cash transfers(conditional on children’s school attendance), could be an
option to explore and pilot. Such transfers could allow womento pay school fees, and hire extra labour when needed. They
could also take the form of direct access to credit.
2. Support women’s organisations
Women-only producer organisations could be a mechanism tofacilitate women’s market participation, as they may feel that
their interests are better served, in comparison with producer
organisations dominated by men.42 As mentioned previously, our
Women’s School of Leadership programme is seeing women
set up their own Women’s Associations which, among otherthings, is helping them set up income-generating projects todiversify their incomes. There have been positive experiences inother commodities that can be learnt from, including Fairtrade’s
Women in Coffee programme in Kenya.43 Women’s organisations
could improve their access to inputs and certification-related
premium use, serve as a product and price differentiation
strategy by creating a ‘produced-by-women’ brand, increase
their participation in organisational decision-making and makewomen’s work more visible across the value chain.44

Recommendations to the UK
chocolate industry
At the World Cocoa Forum in 2018, stakeholders including
the global chocolate industry agreed they should develop andimplement policies that enable cocoa farmers to make a living
income.47 As this report has noted, steps have been taken
towards that goal but much remains to be done.
We call on UK-based chocolate companies, traders andsupermarkets to:• Join the Alliance on Living Incomes in Cocoa.
• Support the introduction of HRDD legislation in the UK andacross Europe, as set out previously.
• Design and implement gender-sensitive programmes thatwould help enhance the economic empowerment of womencocoa farmers, as set out previously.
• Commit to sourcing their cocoa on Fairtrade terms as afirst step.
• Commit to the goal of ensuring that cocoa farmers receive
a living income by 2030.

	S. Barrientos and A.O. Bobie, Promoting gender equality in the cocoachocolate value chain: opportunities and challenges in Ghana, GDI
Working Paper, 2016-006 (2016) p.32
40
	J. Ashby et al., ‘Investing in women as drivers of agricultural growth’,
Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook (2008)41
	J. Ashby et al., ‘Investing in women as drivers of agricultural growth’,p.6
42	C. Oya et al., Effects of certification schemes for agricultural production
on socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle- income countries: asystematic review
43	https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/Media-Centre/Blog/2018/February/Womendoing-it-for-themselves-the-first-coffee-grown-by-women39

18

	C. Oya et al., Effects of certification schemes for agricultural production
on socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle- income countries: asystematic review
45	Cocoanect, ‘The Women in Cocoa Business Initiative, Ivory Coast, [website](2017) http://www.cocoanect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Womenin-cocoa-business-initiative-2017.pdf, (accessed 4 September 2019)46
	The World Bank et al., Gender in agriculture sourcebook, Washington DC(2009) p.74
47
	ICCO Berlin Declaration of the Fourth World Cocoa Conference (2018)https://www.icco.org/about-us/icco-news/387-berlin-declaration-of-the-fourth-world-cocoa-conference.html
44

Conclusion
With only ten years left to meet the SDGs,
urgent action is needed to enable all cocoa
farmers, especially women, to reach aliving income. These ambitions will fall shortwithout addressing the position of invisible
women, and doing so will require tailoredinterventions.
We call on the UK Government and UKbased chocolate companies to act with
ambition and commitment, and join us
in ending the exploitation of cocoa’s
invisible women.

Toure Mariam (left) running a training session for the
women’s savings group, AVEC, in Gore Ya Plohi village(the woman on the right is a member of AVEC)£1.86
Cocoa farmers deserve

a living income

Kra Zelna Madeleine speaks to others as part of
the Women’s School of Leadership, Côte d’Ivoire

19This report was written by David Taylor, drawing
on research by Dafni Skalidou and Léna Prouchet.
For more information please contact:
David Taylor
Policy Manager, Fairtrade Foundation
david.taylor@fairtrade.org.uk

fairtrade.org.uk

Fairtrade Foundation,
5.7 The Loom, 14 Gower’s Walk,
London E1 8PY
Tel +44 (0) 20 7405 5942

Email: mail@fairtrade.org.uk

Registered charity no. 1043886
A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales
Photography: Alex Rumford, Chris Terry, Simon Rawles,
Front cover image for illustrative purposes only.
Top row, left to right: Amanie Melanie, CEAA; Kouassi N’da Assoh, CEAA;
Adringa Yaoua, CAYAT. Bottom row, left to right: Ahou Yvonne, SCOOPACA;
Bity Sylvie Corinne, CEAA; Kone Fatim, CEAA. All Côte d’Ivoire.

This publication was produced with thefinancial support of the European Union.
Its contents are the sole responsibilityof the Fairtrade Foundation and do notnecessarily reflect the views of theEuropean Union.