Acceso usuarios
Robert Becker Pickson, Chencheng Zhao, Lirong Jian, Elliot Boateng
Cocoa production sustains smallholder farmers across tropical regions, particularly in West Africa. However, its long-term sustainability faces mounting threats from climate change, insufficient infrastructure, and underinvestment. In Côte d’Ivoire, foreign agricultural aid is a key instrument for mitigating these structural constraints and strengthening the cocoa sector’s productivity and resilience. This study employs threshold regression, complemented by a machine-learning-based kernel-regularised least-squares approach, to investigate the role of foreign agricultural aid in cocoa production amid climate change, spanning 1975Q1 to 2022Q4. Our results indicate that foreign agricultural aid has a detrimental effect on cocoa production below the aid threshold but significantly stimulates production above it. Remittances enhance cocoa output in the low-aid regime but reduce it in the high-aid regime. At the same time, population growth consistently depresses production, with more potent effects under low-aid conditions. Temperature and rainfall harm cocoa production in the low-aid regime but have little or no impact in the high-aid regime. Exchange rate depreciation and cocoa cultivated area positively influence production, with their effect varying by aid level. To validate robustness, the KRLS results further corroborate the presence of nonlinear relationships and distributional heterogeneity among cocoa production determinants. Our study supports the need for climate-resilient agricultural strategies, including aid programs designed to promote agroforestry systems, drought- and heat-tolerant cocoa varieties, and investments in protective infrastructure.
