Touton, a French trading company, purchases cocoa from over 18,000 farmers in ruralGhana.
Touton aims to secure quality, sustainable cocoa for global markets while reinforcing the agency of farmers. However, cocoa is almost exclusively grown by smallholder farmers, making it expensive and time-intensive to ensure quality and sustainability across the supply chain.
As one of the world’s largest chocolate companies, The Hershey Company receives cocoa from 12,000 farmers across 12 districts in Ghana sourced through Ghana’s Cocoa Board.
Hershey’s does not work directly with the farmers, presenting a unique challenge to ensuring cocoa quality and promoting sustainable agricultural practices on a large scale.
The Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture is tasked with surveying 24,000 farmers across 60 districts every year for their Ghana Agricultural Production Survey (GAPS). Collecting this data and entering it into the system takes over 9 months, making the reports outdated by the time they are published limiting GAPS’ utility in the development and monitoring of effective agriculture policy.