Ghana: Cocoa and Forests Initiative claims renewed progress on tackling deforestation challenges

The key Cocoa & Forests Initiative has unveiled its latest annual report, which found 83% of its directly sourced cocoa from participating companies in Ghana and 82% in neighbouring Ivory Coast are now traceable to farm level, ahead of upcoming EUDR legal operating requirements reports Neill Barston. Notably, the cross-industry venture, which was signed by over 35 chocolate and cocoa companies including Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Ferrero, Touton and Olam, Nestle, Blommer and Hershey, set about to enhance the scheme in a ‘2.0’ version within the past two years, in recognition that its efforts needed to be scaled further, in order to address the industry-linked deforestation that the sector has played its part in. However, the venture has asserted that progress has been made in terms of raising levels of traceability, forest conservation and climate adaptation, with 58,774 hectares of reforestation carried out in rural areas last year, and 7,132 hectares of forest reserves and ...