Fairtrade and its Hidden Transparency Issues Within the Ghanaian Cocoa Sector?

Finale of Cocoa Diaries Email-Based Interview with Fairtrade Africa- West Africa Network

Continued from Part two

Can Fairtrade Prove with evidence how they have improved the net income of Fairtrade cocoa farmers?

So far, with the interview, Fairtrade still hadn’t proved how they had improved their farmers’ net income with data. We know so far from Graph 2 that only 8% of Fairtrade-produced cocoa beans in Ghana during the 2019/20 crop year were sold on Fairtrade terms. Making Fairtrade farmers spend more money meeting Fairtrade standards but selling at the price of conventional beans.

I asked Fairtrade to provide me with evidence of the net income increase of Fairtrade Cocoa farmers. I added, "I am asking this because Fairtrade positions itself as improving cocoa farmers’ livelihoods and income, yet here, in this case, there are no records to prove that”. Fairtrade responded that: