GRADING AGRICHEMICAL MANAGEMENT
Etelle Higonnet
Etelle Higonnet is currently Senior Advisor at the National Wildlife Federation. For decades she has led global human rights and environmental campaigns, including pushing to curb deforestation in the palm oil, rubber, soy, and cocoa industries. She was knighted as a ‘Chevalier’ of France’s ‘Ordre National du Mérite’ (National Order of Merit) for her work to protect the environment.
We are facing the sixth mass extinction. Much of this – and in particular the insect apocalypse – is driven by chemicals in agriculture. Thus, we need to see cocoa and chocolate companies reforming their current approaches and implementing practices that do not rely on agrichemical usage. Agriculture has become increasingly dependent on pesticides over the past 70 years. However, exposure to pesticides can be hazardous to human health and side effects might vary from short- to long-term ones.
Increased productivity via chemical inputs cannot be a primary goal for multinationals sourcing cocoa beans. The longevity of the industry, the health of the farming communities who often depend on neighbouring rivers for drinking and bathing, soil health, and the well-being of the planet must be prioritised.
Companies should therefore eliminate the most hazardous pesticides entirely and move towards reducing the total amount of agrichemicals used. In so doing, they must support farmers in efforts to shift away from agricultural practices that rely on dangerous chemicals, whilst maintaining farmers’ yield and income. Companies should emphasise yield for farmers through non-chemical interventions such as grafting, pruning, hand pollinisation, organic compost, biochar, and high-quality education on agroecological practices like Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
Even low-ambition companies that fail to transition away from agrichemicals must ensure a basic minimum: protection for cocoa farmers with personal protective equipment (PPE), safe storage, and training. Also, there ought to be zero exposure of children and pregnant women to agrichemicals. This must be especially emphasised in light of the NORC report (2020), which found over one fifth of child labourers in the cocoa industry were exposed to chemicals, catapulting them into the realm of ‘hazardous child labour’ (one of the ILO’s ‘worst forms of child labour’). Any company that cares about child labour, must also care about agrichemicals.
For previous Chocolate Scorecards, we submitted agrichemical questions to companies for two years in a row without scoring them, to give them plenty of time to prepare for being scored on this issue. This year’s Chocolate Scorecard publicly adds a category on agrichemicals and are now scoring all companies on the issue.
In grading agrichemical management, we reached out to an expert from Pesticide Action Network UK to review our questionnaire, shape our analyses of what best answers should look like, and provide further information on best practice in the cocoa industry. This expert – and a literature review we conducted – gave us a better sense of best practice, and this helped us grade the ‘wildcard’ question of the questionnaire.
We analysed this year:
Any stated targets to reduce agrichemicals, with higher points going to companies seeking to phase them out;
Any policy on pesticides, with higher points going to companies actually looking at this, monitoring it, and working on it in some way – and highest points to companies which have already eliminated agrichemicals;
Assessment and monitoring of the most hazardous agrichemicals in supply chain (aka avoiding the worst harms), and action to phase out the use of the most hazardous pesticides;
Support for farmers adopting non-chemical alternatives with training and finance or other;
Points were given for certification – depending on the percentage of companies’ cocoa that was certified – with highest points for organic, and partial points for Fairtrade (FT) and Rainforest Alliance (RA).
Many companies were largely certified by RA and/or FT and, therefore, received partial points. While these certifications are good starting points, they are far from perfect on agrichemical policy and practice.
The best practice certification in chemical management is, of course, organic.
So, Beyond Good and Alter Eco took the highest scores in this category as their entire supply chain is organic. We gave companies that are 100% organic, or close to that, a green egg. However, we ask organic companies not to rest on their laurels. For companies, buying certified organic is not the only thing they can be doing. We recommend that such high-performing companies continuously invest in farmer training, provide support with organic conversion, and get to grips with their supply chains - preferably directly - or through multi-stakeholder initiatives. In cocoa, there are initiatives beyond just off-taking organic cocoa that can be relevant such as grove renewal, which impacts pest pressure and yields. However, financially struggling farmers aren’t able to fund this work themselves. So, a green egg indicates excellence within the industry, but even the best companies should always be thinking of further areas of improvement, like the aforementioned tips; or lifting up other companies by joining the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), Initiatives on Sustainable Cocoa (ISCOs), and other platforms where best-in-class leaders can steadily advocate for industry reforms.
There were other noteworthy green-egg recipients as well; congratulations to Chocolats Halba, which worked hard to address agrichemicals. Congratulations also to companies like Ferrero, Unilever, Hershey’s, and Ritter, which are also on the way to having an acceptable approach to agrichemicals because they source nearly 100% certified FT/RA cocoa. Though FT/RA are not as ambitious as organic, they have a solid approach towards eliminating worst agrichemical practices. For companies in this category, thinking about organic or chemical-free is always an option, and/or considering further ideas on what to do next. For instance, a company can state its objective is to promote IPM among its farmers and growers, and create a time-bound implementation policy to get there, which ideally would include: (i) conducting and sharing research into IPM techniques; (ii) providing training on IPM; (iii) funding growers to research and develop training on IPM and pesticide reduction; and (iv) developing IPM strategies to replace active substances listed on its restricted and/or prohibited lists. Even certified RA/FT producers can sometimes use highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), so we are asking companies to make policies, understand pesticide risks, support growers to reduce reliance on pesticides through IPM, and assess and address pesticide harms.
Comparing Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance: overall, either of these are of course a lot better than nothing at all. But ideally certification would not be the only aspect that companies are considering, because neither FT nor RA go far enough.
Regarding HHP lists, RA and FT are somewhat similar but have diverged in a few places. FT is more comprehensive, excluding a wider range of HHPs than RA. Further, FT measures acute human toxicity, and pesticides of high environmental concern. For FT, highly bee toxic substances (such as neonicotinoids) are scheduled for phase-out by end of 2022. Pesticides such as these, that were perceived as too difficult to eliminate immediately, were placed on Fairtrade’s ‘Orange list’ for phase-out within 1-3 years. Any company that is using FT certified cocoa can double down on helping make the phase out happen quickly, and with strong support for farmers.
At a global level, RA has a ‘Risk Mitigation’ list of pesticides, which includes active ingredients that can continue to be used only with specific risk mitigation measures in place. However, HHPs are incompatible with sustainable production and pose especially high-risk to smallholder farmers such as those growing cocoa in West Africa. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management states, “Pesticides whose handling and application require the use of personal protective equipment that is uncomfortable, expensive or not readily available should be avoided, especially in the case of small-scale users and farm workers in hot climates”. This constitutes recognition by the FAO and WHO that reliance on PPE for pesticide risk mitigation is not adequate for most cocoa farmers.
Last year we reported that there was significant confusion, lack of appropriate understanding of and flawed approaches to reducing chemical inputs in cocoa production. Unfortunately, and despite our best efforts, this befuddlement remains for many companies and is especially visible in the orange/red categories. Here are some issues we found, and in some cases a few recommendations to go with them:
It was disappointing to see that many companies did not have strong policies covering all cocoa stating commitment to agrichemical-free management. There should be no confusion: all cocoa companies must have an agrichemical policy. Any company policy should be company-wide and cover the whole cocoa supply chain.
What should be in a company policy?
We recommend it include education in phasing out chemicals, and farmer support for IPM. Happily, many of this year’s Chocolate Scorecard participants have adopted, or noted interest in adopting, an IPM strategy. IPM is a holistic approach to ecosystem management, which aims to reduce use of pesticides by balancing agro-ecosystem functions. It encourages natural solutions to agriculture productivity and low resistance on use of chemical pesticides. Under IPM policy, strength in agro-ecosystems is harnessed to reduce pests, rather than the use of chemicals to eradicate them and pesticides are only used as a last resort. We strongly encourage companies to embrace an IPM strategy (they can use guidance from RA or other guides) and develop robust plans to use natural methods. Companies should help farmers apply natural agricultural methods, including cultural, physical, or biological controls (e.g., release of natural enemies).
We recommend any company policy include a time-bound implementation plan to phase out agrichemicals, starting with HHPs, before grappling with other remaining pesticides and, ideally, chemical fertilisers too.
In unfortunate cases where phasing out is not envisaged, farmer education around best agrichemical management practices is a must, and will help the accumulation of more points in future Chocolate Scorecards.
Strong measures must be in place to minimise the worst harms, for example detailing efforts to protect children and pregnant women cocoa farmers from agrichemicals, until their use is discontinued in a company’s supply chain.
In the worst-case scenario, if a company decides to use agrichemicals and not phase them out, it should never allow any chemicals in its supply chain
which are banned by the Rotterdam, Stockholm, and Basel Conventions
which have acute toxicity, namely WHO Class 1A or 1B chemicals
which have chronic toxicity – GHS Category 1 and 2 for carcinogen, mutagen, reproductive toxin
where the pesticide or formulation has ‘severe’ effects on human health or environment
which meet FAO HHP criteria.
Ensuring this is a bare minimum for any cocoa/chocolate company.
The use of glyphosate and paraquat should be abandoned.
Mere compliance with the law is not adequate.
A few notes on challenges that companies reported they face, which are real, and which we endeavoured to be sensitive to:
A barrier to the curbing of agrichemicals is indeed that some governments, including Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, intervene to promote the use of agrichemicals in cocoa. This makes it hard for companies to fully control the use of agrichemicals among their farmers. Eventually, however, if enough cocoa companies change their agrichemicals approach, it can help shift the positions of governments and extension services in these countries to improve.
Chemical management goes hand in hand with traceability. Companies had higher percentages of organic cocoa (or less-chemical cocoa) in their direct supply chain than in their indirect supply chain. Once companies can fully trace where their cocoa is coming from, they can begin to understand and improve agrichemical practices for all their cocoa.
Now to close on some positive news and key takeaways for participating companies:
Robust agroforestry and agrichemical practices are visible in some companies’ answers to the Chocolate Scorecard.
While we recognise that not all companies are on track to being certified organic, we did award grades for partial efforts. For example, having some percentage of cocoa on track to better dealing with agrichemicals. And many companies were able to provide evidence on this.
So, overall, some encouraging work by some of the leading companies in the reduction of chemical use in their supply chains, though much of the cocoa industry needs a major push towards organic or chemical-free cocoa production, deeper understanding of the dangers associated with agrichemicals usage, and better plans on how to phase them out.
We are here to provide companies feedback and advise them on their quest, so please reach out! We have a lot of information on existing systems or best practices in agrichemical reduction and elimination, including reports, studies in academic journals, training manuals for farmers, etc. that we can share as a starting point. Let’s do what we can to remove hazardous agrichemicals entirely and start an agrichemical-free revolution in cocoa, as the health of our communities and our planet depends on it!