SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 4 (2015) 2–15 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Production and Consumption journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spc Sustainability of cocoa farmers’ livelihoods: A case study of Asunafo District, Ghana Kenneth Peprah Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University for Development Studies, Wa Campus, P.O. Box 520, Wa, Ghana ABSTRACT The study aims at examining the sustainability of cocoa farmer livelihood. Emphasis was laid on investigation of factors that increase or derail the sustainability of cocoa farmer livelihood. Quantitative and qualitative data were sourced from relevant state institutions and 264 farmers drawn from 774. The results indicate that cocoa farmer livelihood provides larger secondary livelihoods for labour-sellers, petty traders and staff of cocoa marketing com- panies. The cocoa farmer livelihood is facing threats from the newly oil found, service and industry. The initial capital assets invested in cocoa farming were poor. The study concludes that farmers are made vulnerable by land degradation, corruption in the internal cocoa marketing and inflation. Consequently, incomes (savings) and capital assets are not able to increase as spelt out in the Sustainable Livelihood Framework analysis. Keywords: Cocoa; Farmer; Livelihood; Income; Production c ⃝ 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Sustainable development of agriculture is an important sub- ject area of research considering the role sustainable agri- culture plays in the provision of food, incomes, employ- ment, raw materials for industry and resources for the poor. However, due to issues related to land degradation, defor- estation, biodiversity loss, weakness of relevant state in- stitutions and apathy of some stakeholders, agriculture is seriously undermined and so are the livelihoods that depend on agriculture (Enuoh and Bisong, 2014). One such livelihood is cocoa farming in Ghana which contributes about 21% of the world’s cocoa production in 2009–2010, the second largest country producer of cocoa, Theobroma cacao L.(Afrane and Ntiamoah, 2011; Boateng et al., 2014). The huge presence of Ghana in the world cocoa trade and industry is mainly the hard work of about two million smallholder farmers (Afrane and Ntiamoah, 2011). In addition to the primary cocoa farm- ing are secondary livelihoods that exist and operate as part of Ghana’s cocoa industry; raising the number of people en- gaged in cocoa livelihoods to about 6.3 million (about 26% of E-mail address: primus146_2000@yahoo.com. Received 10 April 2015; Received in revised form 7 August 2015; Accepted 4 September 2015; Published online 21 September 2015. Ghana’s 24.2 million population) (Gockowski et al., 2011). Be- sides employment, cocoa is the second largest export com- modity after gold since 1992, contributing about 7.3% to Gross Domestic Product (Afrane and Ntiamoah, 2011; Codjoe et al., 2013b). Hence, the importance of cocoa to Ghana’s economy and the livelihoods of millions of Ghanaians warrants an investigation into welfare and wellbeing of the primary pro- ducers of cocoa (farmers) so as to sustain the interest in pro- duction (Asamoah et al., 2013). The significance of the study is based on the fact that Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa and a major ex- porter of high quality cocoa beans and products to the global market (Aithnard, 2014). Ghana remains a country that exer- cises maximum control of the entire volume of cocoa export under the auspices of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD). Ghana’s Produce Buying Company formerly under the con- trol of COCOBOD maintains heavy presence in the internal cocoa market although there are 25 private licenced buying companies since the partial liberalization in 1993 (Vigneri and Santos, 2007). Cocoa is partly responsible for poverty reduc- tion experienced in the country, particularly, rural poverty as http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2015.09.001 2352-5509/ c ⃝ 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.