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Cooperatives are central to the sector and to building its resilience.
That may sound self-evident. After all, many of the world’s largest cocoa buyers already source significant volumes through cooperatives and farmer organisations. But the discussion pushed further. The real question is no longer whether cooperatives matter – it is whether the industry is investing in them at anything like the level required.
As moderator Anthony Myers noted at the outset, “strong cooperatives are not just a social model, they are a commercial asset.” That point was echoed by panellists from Fairtrade Africa, Ferrero, Ben & Jerry’s, and cooperatives Ecookim and Coopaza in Côte d’Ivoire.
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In a volatile market, the cooperative model is being asked to do far more than aggregate beans – it is being asked to hold together the foundations of resilient cocoa supply chains.
Trust as Infrastructure
The discussion was grounded in new research from Fairtrade Foundation presented by Sonndia Ouattara, Cocoa Lead, Fairtrade Africa. The key findings were that cooperatives support farmer incomes in interconnected ways: securing better terms through aggregation, enabling access to markets and finance, distributing services and inputs, and – critically – building trust.
That trust emerged as one of the most important themes of the webinar. Ouattara described cooperatives as “trusted agents of change.”
It is a phrase worth examining.
Too often, the industry frames training, productivity, or compliance as purely technical interventions. But these efforts only succeed when farmers trust the people delivering them – and the systems behind them.
As Cheryl Pinto of Ben & Jerry’s put it, “many things move at the speed of trust, including innovation.”
Programmes on areas like pruning, farm rehabilitation, or income diversification may look robust on paper, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on confidence – confidence from farmers, cooperative leadership and from the buyers supporting them.
This was reinforced by Pinto’s observation of a “virtuous cycle”: long-term partnerships build trust, which, in turn, drives higher adoption rates. In Ben & Jerry’s work with Coopaza, for example, trust has directly contributed to increased uptake of pruning within farm service programmes.
Procurement and Sustainability: No Longer Separate
From a commercial perspective, Olivier Zwolsman of Ferrero offered a complementary insight. Reflecting a broader shift within the sector, he highlighted that procurement and sustainability functions are increasingly integrated – something both Ferrero and Ben & Jerry’s lead well on
“A buyer in cocoa can’t look at procurement separately from sustainability,” he said.
Zwolsman also emphasised the importance of long-term partnerships alongside robust internal management systems within cooperatives. Strong cooperative data and standardised benchmarking, he argued, is essential to track impact effectively – to understand what is working, what is not, and where investment should be directed.
The Business Case for Strong Cooperatives
The implications are significant. Strong cooperatives are not just vehicles for delivering sustainability projects – they are increasingly essential for securing traceability, managing farmer data, reducing side-selling, improving market access, and preparing for compliance with regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation.
They also provide critical infrastructure for addressing systemic risks, including child labour, gender inequality, and climate vulnerability.
In short, cooperatives are not just where sustainability happens – they are where supply chain resilience happens.
Investment as a Force Multiplier
Aminata Bamba of the Ecookim union made the operational case clear. Most of the cocoa farmers she works with are smallholders cultivating around 3 hectares. At that scale, individual farmers have limited negotiating power and restricted access to services or finance.
The cooperative’s role, therefore, is deeply practical: to organise, buy, sell, train, support, and connect. It also serves as the conduit through which long-term partnerships translate into tangible benefits for farmers.
Bamba highlighted the transformative potential of cooperative-level investment. Well-funded cooperatives are better positioned to access premium markets – such as Fairtrade – where additional income can be reinvested into farmer livelihoods. This includes supporting income diversification, establishing Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), and delivering inputs, agricultural training and services to improve productivity.
Finance, Liquidity, and Risk
Access to finance was another key thread throughout the discussion. Ouattara pointed to the importance of pre-finance, input loans, harvest loans, and diversification finance. She highlighted Fairtrade’s LEAP revolving finance facility, funded by Mars, as an example of how cash-flow constraints can be addressed more strategically.
Liquidity at the cooperative level is critical. Without it, cooperatives struggle to purchase crops when farmers need to sell, driving side-selling at lower prices and undermining farmers' income security. With it, they can stabilise supply, support access to inputs, and enable farmers to invest beyond cocoa.
Anthony Myers
Trust, Accountability, and Results
The webinar also featured insights from Djibo Breiman of the Coopaza cooperative, which has grown from 166 members in 2011 to more than 3,200 today.
He attributed this growth to a combination of direct and indirect benefits: training, premiums, access to inputs, local infrastructure, women’s empowerment, and sustained partnerships. But at the heart of it all lies trust.
According to Breiman, trust is built through accountability, transparency, and consistent delivery. “The best publicity for what we do is results,” he said.
It is a grounding reminder in a sector that can sometimes lean too heavily on abstract language. Farmers join – and remain in – cooperatives not because of rhetoric, but because those cooperatives deliver tangible value.
From Sourcing to Investment
Despite growing reliance on cooperatives, a critical gap remains between sourcing from them and investing in them.
That gap carries real consequences. Without sustained investment, cooperative capacity weakens, service delivery becomes fragile, productivity gains stall, and risk remains disproportionately concentrated at the farmer level.
Pinto captured this tension with a compelling phrase: beyond “linked prosperity,” the sector must also embrace “shared adversity.” If buyers expect resilient supply chains, risk cannot simply be pushed down during periods of volatility. Partnership must hold in difficult years as well as favourable ones.
A Strategic Turning Point
The webinar’s conclusion was clear. Cocoa cooperatives are among the sector’s most important commercial and strategic partners to build a sustainable, resilient cocoa sector.
The question now is whether the industry is prepared to invest accordingly.
- Download the latest Fairtrade Foundation Research: CO-OPERATIVES BUILD A BETTER WORLD FOR COCOA FARMERS
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