Abstract

Smallholder cocoa farmers in West Africa receive just 6 per cent of the final value of manufactured cocoa products, and predominantly live in poverty. Despite interventions aimed at improving welfare, many existing methods marginalise smallholder voices and perpetuate hardship. Simultaneously, protecting West Africa’s forests in the face of accelerating climate change is critical, creating a complex trade-off between smallholder welfare and forest conservation. This paper expands the conventional literature focus on cocoa income as a sole measure of welfare by incorporating broader welfare metrics, such as non-farm incomes, land size, food security, and access to environmental amenities, consolidated within a novel agent-based simulation model. The model returns the focus to smallholder-level responses to interventions, offering new insights into the conditions under which smallholder welfare and forest preservation can be jointly improved. 

Keywords: Welfare, Environment, Deforestation, Cobb-Douglas, Smallholder, Farmer Welfare, Agriculture, Environmental Services, Cocoa, Simulation, Agent-Based Model, West Africa

How to Cite:

Fisher, M., (2025) “Modelling Smallholder Welfare: Changing the Role of Interventions in Supporting Smallholder Cocoa Farmers and Forests in West Africa ”, UCL Journal of Economics 4(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.2755-0877.2032