A living income for smallholder commodity farmers and protected forests and biodiversity: how can the private and public sectors contribute? White Paper on sustainable commodity production

Interventions and policies in the cocoa, tea and coffee sectors have failed to ensure that all smallholder commodity farmers earn more than the $1.90 World Bank poverty line or a living income, and they have not halted deforestation. Commodity farming is strongly associated with deforestation, in spite of interventions. For more than 50% of the cocoa and tea farmers in our datasets, household income would need to double in order for them to earn a living income. For those farmers, farming will never be a primary pathway out of poverty.