"Growing cocoa enhances the status of women in West Africa and it provides them with an important source of income," said Dr. Agnes Quisumbing, senior research fellow at IFPRI.

Quisumbing, an economist who studies land rights and gender issues in developing countries, led a recent survey of farmers throughout villages in Western Ghana to learn how cocoa benefits women, their families, their communities, and the environment.

"Traditionally, women in West Africa have not been able to inherit land from their husbands. However, with cocoa production, women are obtaining strong rights to land, which in turn enhances their status and long-term security," said Dr. Keijiro Otsuka, professorial fellow for the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development. Otsuka, a collaborator on the research, was formerly a visiting research fellow at IFPRI.

Ghana is the world's second largest producer of cocoa. Small-scale farmers produce almost all cocoa grown in the country. For them, cocoa is an important cash crop; they can increase their incomes by growing cocoa instead of only food crops on their plots. Additionally, while cocoa plants are young, they can be planted alongside food crops, in a practice known as intercropping. In this way, poor farmers can grow both cocoa and food for their own consumption on the same land.

Cocoa farming has environmental benefits, as well. Intercropping of cocoa with food crops helps maintain some of the biological diversity the land supported before it was cleared for farming. Cocoa can also be grown on steep hillsides, which helps to prevent soil erosion.

Cocoa farming also has a negative side, as reported widely in the media.

"There have been recent reports of slavery on cocoa plantations in Côte d'Ivoire, although the extent of the problem has not yet been determined. But in other parts of West Africa, where cocoa is grown on family farms, our research shows that there is a positive side to cocoa farming, especially when poor women farmers are able to grow cocoa for their own benefit and for the benefit of their families," said Quisumbing. "When women grow cocoa, the additional income they earn is more likely to be used to meet the family's basic needs, including nutrition, health care and education."

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Download a copy of this press release in Japanese

For more information, see:

• Cocoa Facts: The History and Production of Cocoa
• Facts on Women: Poverty, Farming, and Education
• Empowering Women and Fighting Poverty: Cocoa and Land Rights in West Africa
  (PDF 742K)

or contact:

Michael Rubinstein
202/862.5670
m.rubinstein@cgiar. org

Michele Pietrowski
202/862.5679
m.pietrowski@cgiar.org