Sustainable Tree Crops Program

Project Dates: Pilot Phase 2003-2006; Phase II 2007-2011

Countries: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria

Core-Funders: US Agency for International Development, World Cocoa Foundation, and industry

Manager: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Overview

The Sustainable Tree Crops Program is an innovation platform that aims to improve the economic and social well being of tree crop farmers and the environmental sustainability of their systems in West and Central Africa.  During the Pilot Phase, a first set of technology transfer, marketing, and institutional innovations were introduced and validated in the field. 

Phase II of the program builds upon the successes of the pilot, addressing additional production, marketing and policy opportunities identified during the pilot, while strengthening local capacity.

Program Objectives:

To contribute to growth in rural income among tree crop farmers, the Sustainable Tree Crops Program focuses on the achievement of five strategic results through the introduction of new tools, methods, approaches, and policies together with public and private partners.

The program will reach 150,000 farmers including 125,000 cocoa farmers that will intensify production through increased productivity, safety, and efficiency, and 25,000 farmers that will diversify production and engage in alternatives to cocoa production. 

• Enhanced productivity of cocoa farms through intensification: increase gross margins by 25-30% across farms participating in productivity enhancing innovations.
• Enhanced marketing efficiency in the cocoa sector: reduce marketing margins by 5-15% between farmgate and FoB pricing among farmers and the local private sector participating in market efficiency enhancing innovations.

• Income alternatives in cocoa farming communities and agro-ecologies for equitable growth: increase gross margins by 50% across farms participating in income enhancing alternatives.

• Improved policy environment to enable rural transformation in cocoa communities and agro-ecologies: increase productivity growth by 6% in the cocoa belt.

• Scaling out of core program knowledge and expertise to tree crops in other agro-ecologies: align productivity growth of selected tree crops in other agro-ecologies with overall agricultural productivity growth of 6%.

 

Regional Impact to Date:

• 24,114 farmers were directly trained through the participatory Farmer Field School approach and 51,780 farmers indirectly benefited through farmer-to-farmer diffusion of knowledge.  Trained farmers realized yields 15% to 40% greater than non-trained farmers while using 10% to 20% less pesticides. 

• Participating cocoa-farming household income in 2004 was on average 23% to 55% higher than previous years as a result of improved production and marketing skills developed through the Sustainable Tree Crops Program.

• Farmers participating in group sales arrangements received 5% to 15% higher prices for their cocoa. In 2007, farmer organizations working with STCP marketed 4,900 MT of cocoa and generated US$4.14 million in revenue.

• In Ghana, for every 1,000 famers trained, 210 children are voluntarily removed from hazardous forms of work. Through Farmer Field Schools, farmers in all participating countries are sensitized to child labor using social and technical messaging.

• The National Cocoa Development Committee of Nigeria has officially declared the Farmer Field School approach to be the primary extension mechanism for cocoa.  The Committee is working with the Sustainable Tree Crops Program to implement a national plan to this end. 

• Local research capacity is being developed across the region with the Sustainable Tree Crops Program serving as a platform for regional collaboration on research addressing a variety of areas including the genetic basis for improved cocoa plants, pest and disease management, and the rehabilitation and diversification of cocoa farms.

 

Funding sources of the Sustainable Tree Crops Program and its contributing partners 2003-2008:

World Cocoa Foundation

cocoa/chocolate industry

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development/National Cocoa Development Committee (Nigeria)

Fonds de Développement et de Promotion des activités des producteurs de café et de cacao (Côte d'Ivoire)

SOCODEVI/Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Forest and Landscape Denmark/Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA)

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM Germany)

Department for International Development (UK)

Dutch Ministry of Agriculture

Associates in Rural Development (ARD USA)

Transfair USA