A living income for smallholder commodity farmers and protected forests and biodiversity: how can the private and public sectors contribute? : White Paper on sustainable commodity production

Summary

Interventions and policies in the cocoa, tea and coffee sectors have failed to ensure that all smallholder commodity farmers earn more than the $1.90 World Bank poverty line or a living income, and they have not halted deforestation. Commodity farming is strongly associated with deforestation, in spite of interventions. For more than 50% of the cocoa and tea farmers in our datasets, household income would need to double in order for them to earn a living income. For those farmers, farming will never be a primary pathway out of poverty.