CI:RRRCLES – Enhancing Cocoa Yields with Compost
Fertiliser use is frequently recommended as a key strategy to improve cocoa yields; however, most cocoa farmers are smallholders with limited access to inputs, who use little or no fertiliser.
To address this issue, we have worked with our partner LONO in Côte d’Ivoire to implement the CI:RRRCLES project (Côte d’Ivoire: Reducing, Reusing and Recycling to Contribute and Lead in Efficient Sustainable waste management).
As many farmers do not use chemical fertilisers on their plantations due to the increasing costs, the project, partly funded by the Dutch government, aims to use compost made from local agricultural waste (such as cocoa pod husks, cashew shells, sawdust, chicken manure and organic waste from food shops) to fertilise cocoa plantations.
The compost has been provided to 50 volunteer farmers, who have applied 1 kg per tree on part of their plots, and nothing to the rest as a control. To assess the impact, the number of pods produced by each section is counted.
Ouedraogo Alassane, a farmer from the SPAD Daloa cooperative is one of the volunteer farmers. He farms with his son and has been a Rainforest Alliance-certified farmer since 2021. He says: “I really like the compost. My plantation looks beautiful now and the leaves are very green. I’m happy when I see a lot of flowers because that means I will have a good harvest.”
Data collected on the 50 plots that received compost shows very encouraging results. The plots with compost applied had 24 per cent more flowers than the control during the flowering period of the cropping calendar, and 23 per cent more healthy pods.
Results
Data collected on the 50 plots that received compost shows very encouraging results. The plots with compost applied had 24 per cent more flowers than the control during the flowering period of the cropping calendar, and 23 per cent more healthy pods.
“I used to think that only NPK fertilisers could bring this kind of result, but this compost is very good,” says Ouedraogo, “Now I need to save enough to buy compost for my whole plantation.”
A study by ITAD on the beneficiary cooperatives showed that despite knowing the benefits of compost, only 8 per cent of farmer fertilise their entire plantation, and 60 per cent still use no compost at all. The reason behind this poor uptake is they simply cannot afford to buy compost and do not have the means to make enough compost themselves.
The project has demonstrated the effectiveness of compost and raised its profile amongst cocoa farmers, but it is clear that more investment is needed if we are to drive uptake and achieve impact at scale.