These notes provide an overview of the issues around Fairtrade and cocoa covered on the site and put the teaching activities into context. They also contain facts, figures and ideas you may want to use.

Cocoa in Ghana
What are the problems faced by cocoa farmers?
What is Fairtrade?
The Fairtrade Mark
Kuapa Kokoo – good cocoa farmers
What does Kuapa Kokoo mean for the cocoa farmers?
Dubble deal
Ethical shopping

Cocoa in Ghana

Ghana depends on cocoa. After gold, it’s the country’s economic mainstay, and Ghanaian cocoa is considered to be some of the world’s finest. Most Ghanaian cocoa is produced on small farms of 3-4 hectares.

There are about two million cocoa farmers in Ghana.

There are a lot of links in the chain between the cocoa tree and the chocolate bar and cocoa farmers, right at the beginning of the chain, often benefit the least from the global cocoa industry. In Ghana, each farmer sells their cocoa to a private buying company, which then sells it on to Cocobod, the Ghanaian government cocoa marketing board. It is then sold on to international buyers, such as chocolate manufacturers and commodity brokers, at a price set on commodity exchanges, which mediate between buyers and sellers of cocoa worldwide. This site deals mainly with the experiences of the cocoa farmers, the challenges they face, and how Kuapa kokoo and Fairtrade makes a difference.

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