Drones for the Certification Process in Côte d'Ivoire's Cocoa Production

According to the Repertory of Cooperative Societies report published by the Ministry of Agriculture of Côte d'Ivoire in 2017, the country has over a thousand agricultural cooperatives with over 4 million small and medium-sized farmers. For more than five years, several of these cooperatives, particularly those operating in cocoa, have been using certification processes to better sell the production of member farmers, helping them to improve their living conditions. UAV mapping appears to be an interesting alternative in the certification process. 

The certification process consists of granting a distinction to cooperatives that respect good agricultural practices. To do this, farmers are trained to produce in sustainable conditions, respecting the environment and combating child labour. A cooperative whose members are certified receives a bonus paid by the final cocoa buyers (e.g. Barry Callebault whose Ivorian branch SACO purchases certified beans) and then 50% of this bonus is paid to farmers, while the other 50% returns to the cooperative in order to be able to offer services to its members.

Côte d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer of cocoa, and this crop is dominated by a number of small farmers whose surface area does not exceed two hectares. In the certification process, the notion of environment is important. Farmers must produce in unprotected areas, at a reasonable distance from water points and the traceability of production must be known. To do so, cooperatives wishing to be certified must provide several documents, including the mapping of member producers' parcels. To do this, they call geometers who, using portable GPS, go around the plots to find boundaries, coordinates and get the maps out.

In this context, drone technology seems to be an interesting alternative. Indeed, drone mapping has several advantages: faster to carry out in the field, more precise (plotting + plot image), and it has several benefits for both growers and certification bodies such as Rainforest or Fairtrade. To this end, Côte d'Ivoire Flyings Labs has carried out reflections with a group of cooperative representatives in order to launch a pilot project aimed at identifying the benefits of using drones for mapping as part of the certification process. The actions carried out under this pilot project can then be replicated on a larger scale, generally to resolve land issues.