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Cocoa Prices Triple, But Do Farmers Feel the Gains?

By Bernhard Tröster, Felix Maile, Cornelia Staritz and Sophie van Huellen

In 2021, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire introduced a $400/tonnes Living Income Differential (LID) on cocoa bean exports, widely regarded as a key mechanism to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers. However, this premium was dwarfed by recent price surges at the global derivative markets, which serve as a benchmark for the sales of West African cocoa beans. Yet, farmers have seen a relatively minor increase in the price they receive.

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Contract farming is everywhere, but how does it affect agrarian relations in the Global South?

By Caroline Hambloch, Helena Pérez Niño and Mark Vicol / New Rhythms of Development blog series

Contemporary debates in agrarian studies have been predominantly focused on land and property issues, at times to the detriment of questions about production and exchange. The large and expanding footprint of contract farming is one example of a relatively neglected – yet significant – dimension of contemporary agricultural systems in the Global South. Farming contracts are one of many forms of coordinating production and exchange that seek to avoid the uncertainty for producers and buyers of finding each other more spontaneously in open markets. Contract farming involves a non-transferable agreement between farmers and buyers that specifies the terms of production and marketing, typically relating to the price, quantity, quality and delivery of the product.

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Digitalizing agriculture in Africa: promises and risks of an emerging trend

by Fabio Gatti and Oane Visser  | EADI/ISS Blog Series

The potential of the digitalization of agriculture in Africa to contribute to food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability agendas is being increasingly recognized, as shown by growing investment in digital technologies that are supposed to help small-scale farmers to ‘upgrade’ the way they farm. However, these technologies should not be considered panaceas from the get-go and require critical scrutiny to ensure that they will benefit those who need it the most. Continue reading “Digitalizing agriculture in Africa: promises and risks of an emerging trend”