Smallholder tea farmers in Kenya are organized through the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), which works with farmers to produce, process and market high quality teas. KTDA promotes better tea production practices in order to help smallholder farmers increase production quantity and achieve certification--with the ultimate goal of strengthening existing tea markets and establishing new ones. Various KTDA farms are pursuing certification by Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and UTZ.
This literature review aims to identify climate‐friendly agricultural practices for coffee, cocoa, and tea that (a) reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the use of land, machinery and chemicals, (b) lead to an increase of on‐farm carbon stocks, and/or (c) improve the resilience of agro‐ecosystems and farming communities to adapt to a changing climate, compared to local, business-as-usual practices (BAUs). This comparison is based on surveys of the scientific data related to GHGs and carbon storage, as well as predictions from models.
While some consider cocoa certification an adequate tool to promote sustainability in the cocoa value chain and improve farmer livelihoods, other actors are less optimistic about the net benefits that certification offers at the farm level and highlight its investment burden for farmers. To provide more clarity to this debate, KPMG was commissioned by The International Cocoa Organization to conduct a qualitative and quantitative study on the costs and benefits of certification.
