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Sustainability performance of organic and conventional cocoa farming systems in Atwima Mponua District of Ghana

Bandanaa, Joseph; Asante, Isaac K.; Egyir, Irene S.; Schader, Christian; Annang, Ted Y.; Blockeel, Johan; Kadzere, Irene and Heidenreich, Anja (2021) Sustainability performance of organic and conventional cocoa farming systems in Atwima Mponua District of Ghana. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 11 (100121), pp. 1-10.

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Document available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665972721000222#!


Summary in the original language of the document

The potential of organic agriculture to contribute to sustainable development in Ghana is unclear. This article assesses the sustainability performance of organic and conventional cocoa farming systems in Ghana. Data was collected from 398 organic and conventional cocoa farmers using the SMART-Farm tool. Compared to conventional cocoa farming systems, we found a higher environmental sustainability performance in organic cocoa farming systems regarding water withdrawal (+29%), species diversity (+26%), land degradation (+24%), genetic diversity (+24%) and greenhouse gases (+22%). The organic farming systems performed better compared to conventional in profitability (+20%) due to market premiums, gender equity (+27%), and verbally committed to sustainability topics (+25%). Agronomic practices had a strong influence on the observed sustainability performance, especially the environmental performance. Typical organic cocoa farming system has small farm sizes, spends more hours weeding manually since chemical weedicides are prohibited and has more diverse crops. Measures to improve performance is paramount for farming systems sustainability.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:sustainability, farming systems, cocoa, Ghana, Abacus, FiBL35126, FiBL65107
Agrovoc keywords:
Language
Value
URI
English
sustainability
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_33560
English
farming systems
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_2807
English
cocoa tree -> Theobroma cacao
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_7713
Subjects: Crop husbandry > Production systems
"Organics" in general > Countries and regions > Africa
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Crops > Special crops > Cocoa
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > International > Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics > Systems comparison
DOI:10.1016/j.indic.2021.100121
Deposited By: Forschungsinstitut für biologischen Landbau, FiBL
ID Code:43250
Deposited On:10 Jan 2022 18:22
Last Modified:11 Jan 2023 14:24
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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