Success Story: Umbrellas for Cocoa Trees: Farmers Renew Traditional Practice fo Shade Farming
Mr. Ismaila Kyeremanteng and Mrs. Agnes Gyamfuah are cocoa farmers in their native village of Nerebehi, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. As young people, they learned the traditional practice of shade cocoa farming from their elders. However, as adults they watched as many cocoa farming areas were designated as timber concessions. Many farmers, including Mr. Kyeremanteng no longer saw the value in maintaining shade trees. Without legal rights to the shade trees on her farm, Mrs. Gyamfuah was concerned that her farm could be damaged if timber contractors came to fell the trees. Experiences like this have fostered the common perception that timber trees are undesirable with cocoa cultivation and must be removed.
As a result, many farmers are no longer planting cocoa amongst shade trees, and began destroying the existing trees on their farms. Either through “ring-barking” or setting fire to the base of the trees, farmers ensure that shade trees die slowly without any destruction to their cocoa. This is eroding important ecological interactions in the farming system, a loss which could have dire consequences not only for cocoa farming communities and their economic productivity, but also for the whole of Ghana as the realities of deforestation and climate change worsen.
But when farmers are empowered through education and information sharing, they are better able to assert their rights, and share their new experiences with others. Mrs. Gyamfuah and Mr. Kyeremanteng are two cocoa farmers who have benefited from the Sustainable Tree Crops Program’s (STCP) Tree Diversification Process – a participatory learning process which aligns farmers’ indigenous knowledge with scientific recommendations on how to identify beneficial interactions between shade trees and cocoa.
The project also helps farmers to learn their rights regarding shade trees on their farms; farmers who plant and register trees have ownership of them.
After they were introduced to the concept of tree diversification, Mrs. Gyamfuah and Mr. Kyeremanteng are now collecting and planting timber tree seedlings in their cocoa farms. In fact, they have also developed so much interest in tree planting that they have taken the time to study and identify different species, even when they are just seedlings - a skill that can be very difficult to master.
Why have they changed their mind about timber trees with cocoa? Clearly there could be economic benefits, but Mr. Kyeremanteng explains his decision as follows: “The fact that I see my neighbor’s cocoa trees lose their leaves and die in the sun tells me that like humans who need sunglasses or umbrellas to protect them from the sun, cocoa trees definitely need protection from the sun and timber trees are perfect umbrellas.”
Mr. Kyeremanteng is making an investment in an environmental resource that helps to ensure a healthy and productive farm to improve his livelihood and that of his children. For Mrs. Gyamfuah, the planted trees will serve as security for the future.
Success Story: Kwabena Antwi-Boasiako
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Overview of the Sustainable Tree Crops Program