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"Climate change in cocoa in Ghana is a serious issue for all value chain actors," according to Mark Lundy, Senior Researcher at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

This was the main focus of a recent workshop held in Accra, Ghana, with the involvement of key government actors, civil society organizations and research organizations such as the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

The workshop concluded with an overview of how cocoa stakeholders can engage with the project either on specific technical issues such as exposure gradient mapping or identifying relevant climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices relevant for different levels of climate change or as members of the multi-stakeholder platform either at the national or sub-national levels.

Key outcomes from the workshop include:

• A clear interest from a broad-section of the Ghanaian cocoa sector to better understand what climate change means for cocoa in Ghana, how it will impact different areas of the country and what the most appropriate CSA practices are to promote to manage these impacts;

• Demand for actionable tools that can be tested and rapidly scaled up that help actors in the sector respond to climate change in ways that contribute to productivity and profits for farmers and other actors in the value chain;

• Potential to use tangible research findings to support on-going activities such as the emerging COCOBOD strategy as well as the Forestry Commission ERP and PIP programs funded by the World Bank and others;

• Positive energy to continue engagement and conversations that bring together disparate pieces of previous and on-going work, identify synergies and add value to the entire cocoa sector.

Read the original blog post by Mark Lundy on CIAT website: Ghana workshop on climate smart cocoa a success