Rainforest Alliance has urged cocoa farmers to increase tree cover on their farms to protect cocoa crops against excessive heat and other potential effects of the developing El Niño weather phenomenon.
The organisation said planting economic trees alongside cocoa trees would help cool farm environments, improve soil conditions and strengthen the resilience of cocoa farms to changing weather conditions.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Nicholas Jengre, Country Director of Rainforest Alliance Ghana, said adequate tree cover was particularly important as Ghana prepared for potentially hotter and drier conditions associated with El Niño.
“Once there is hot weather in Ghana, cocoa does not like excessive heat, and therefore excessive heat affects the cocoa,” he said.
He said farmers should make tree planting a priority, explaining that farms with economic trees had healthier cocoa trees because the additional vegetation helped regulate temperatures.
The Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet), in an October 2026 technical brief, said the tropical Pacific was experiencing a very strong and intensifying El Niño, with a 96 per cent probability of reaching very strong intensity between November 2026 and January 2027.
It identified November 2026 to April 2027 as a critical period for Ghana, warning of potentially hotter and drier conditions, water stress, bushfires and increased dust, which could affect agricultural production and farmers’ livelihoods, particularly in vulnerable northern and transition-zone communities.
Mr Jengre said the organization’s certification requirements also encouraged farmers to maintain adequate tree cover, with a requirement of 18 trees per hectare to provide shade and protect cocoa crops from climate-related impacts.
He said the organization was also promoting regenerative agriculture and improved farming practices, including timely weeding, pruning, harvesting and proper drying of cocoa beans, to improve productivity and farmers’ incomes.
Mr Jengre said studies indicated that about 80 per cent of cocoa farmers earned below the living income benchmark.
He cited a recent study by COCOBOD and SUSCO, which estimated that Ghanaian cocoa farmers obtained an average yield of 476 kilogrammes per hectare, compared with the 652 kilogrammes required to provide sufficient income for a farmer supporting a family of five.
He said improving farm productivity was therefore critical to addressing farmers’ income challenges.
Mr Jengre said Rainforest Alliance certification provided farmers with continuous training to improve farm management, control pests and diseases and adopt practices that could increase yields.
He noted that proper pruning alone could increase cocoa yields by about 30 per cent or more.
In a separate interview, Mr Prosper Ayimiah Hyacinth, Standards and Assurance Manager of ETG Beyond Beans Ghana, said the implementation of sustainability standards in Ghana’s cocoa sector was making measurable progress, although some challenges remained.
He said the company supported nearly 9,000 farmers across 20 cocoa districts through training, farm mapping, tree planting and other interventions.
He said its free pruning support had helped participating farmers record yield increases of more than 50 per cent over previous harvests, while tree planting initiatives had achieved a survival rate of about 85 per cent.
Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization that works to promote sustainable agriculture and forestry, protect biodiversity and improve the livelihoods of farming communities through certification, training and partnerships.
Source: GNA
