In the first producer and exporter of cocoa, Côte d’Ivoire, more than half of the beans are not traceable. This is what a study shows, at a time when European regulations are becoming more and more demanding in terms of the sustainability and traceability of imported cocoa.
A “glaring” lack of traceability and transparency in the West African cocoa sector, this is what emerges from the study by several researchers from the University of Louvain published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. These scientists traced the supply chains of exporters via data collected by Routea transparency initiative based on a mapping of international trade and financing of agricultural commodities.
And the results can be summed up in one figure: in 2019, only 45% of cocoa exports were traced to producer cooperatives and even less to cocoa farmers or plantations. The origin of the rest of the beans marketed, more than half, was unknown at the time of the study: either because traders obtain their supplies from intermediaries, or because they do not divulge information on their supplier. “ However, traceability is only valid if it is public “, explains Cécile Rénier, the coordinator of the study, in response to those who put forward a need for confidentiality.
Insufficient traceability to meet European regulations
The data obtained by the researchers reflect an average and differ according to exporters and recipients: if we only look at cocoa exported to Europe, a greater proportion comes from mapped plantations. But in any case, traceability was in 2019 and is still very largely insufficient to meet the new European requirements to no longer import cocoa from deforested areas since December 31, 2020.
The “ambitious” traceability campaign launched three years ago in the country is going in the right direction, according to the coordinator of the study, but is not an automatic guarantee of transparency in the sector.
Trace to curb deforestation
Twenty-five percent of the cocoa plantations are today in Ivorian classified forests which continue to be destroyed, and the beans grown there find in fact their way to exporters and chocolatiers. According to data compiled by Belgian researchers, between 2000 and 2019, almost 2.5 million hectares of forest were replaced by cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire.
According to this scientific study, the uncontrolled exploitation of cocoa threatens in particular the border forests of Liberia: in this area, 80 to 100% of the cocoa exported is not traceable to its first buyer and even less to its planter. . A 100% traced cocoa would in theory be the guarantee of a zero deforestation sector. But the experts in the sector are not fooled: cocoa has no color, recalls one of them, and nothing resembles a bean from a recently cleared plot more than a bean from a old plantation.
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