Cocoa in Africa, when will the quality and profitability for growers be expected?

Audio 48:30

Ivorian cocoa producers in a plantation near Sinfra, central region of Côte d'Ivoire, October 12, 2019. ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP

By: Emmanuelle Bastide

51 mins

With more than 75% of world production, the African continent is the main exporter of cocoa.

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 Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are the world's leading producers.

If Africa is a leader in the production of the raw material, it receives only a tiny part of the income generated by the chocolate industry.

Indeed, producers receive only 6% of the 100 billion dollars in annual revenues of the sector.

And according to the World Bank, half of Ivorian planters live below the poverty line.

How to get more profit from cocoa production?

Should we focus more on local processing?

Turn to high-end cocoa production? 

- Claire Fages

, journalist in the economics department of

RFI

, presenter of the commodities column 

- Michel Barel

, former research director of the

Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), 

member of the

French Chocolate Academy

and director of the KawaCao cabinet, a consultancy firm for cocoa and coffee.

Author of

Du cacao au chocolat - the epic of a gluttony

(Quae Éditions)

- Christophe Eberhart

, agricultural engineer, co-founder of

Ethiquable

, a cooperative specializing in the sale of organic fair trade products.

And a report by

Raphaëlle Constant

in Burkina Faso.

Our reporter met the pastry chocolate maker

Chef André in Ouagadougou. 

--- BoB Chef André Ouagadougou (4 "-5'53)

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  • Raw materials

  • Society

  • Cooperation and Development

  • Ivory Coast

  • Ghana

  • Trade and Trade

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