Africa Platform

Cocoa map for Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana
Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are the main largest producers of cocoa in the world. However, the cultivation of this crop has led to the loss of vast tracts of forest areas in both countries. Efficient and accurate methods for remotely identifying cocoa farms are essential for the implementation of sustainable cocoa practices and the periodic and effective monitoring of forests. This map, generated using Random Forest image classification, shows the 2019 distribution of cocoa farms in both countries. The estimated area for cocoa is 4.8Mha for Cote d'Ivoire and 2.3Mha for Ghana.

Data provider

EC-JRC
Suggested citation

Abu, Itohan-Osa; Szantoi, Zoltan; Brink, Andreas; Thiel, Michael (2020): Cocoa Map (44 804 KB) for Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.917473
Related tool or portal
Licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Date or time period of observation

2019
Frequency of update

Not Updated
Geographic coverage

Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire
Spatial Resolution

10m
Technical background

In this study, a multi-feature Random Forest (RF) algorithm was developed to map cocoa farms from other classes. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and second-order texture features were input variables for the RF model to discriminate cocoa farms in both countries. The estimated area for cocoa in Cote d'Ivoire was 4.8Mha and 2.3Mha for Ghana. The Produce Accuracy (PA) and User Accuracy (UA) of the RF model were 95.08% and 83.69% respectively. The results demonstrate that a combination of the RF model and multi-feature classification can accurately discriminate cocoa plantations, effectively reduce feature dimensions and improve classification efficiency.
Cautions

The cocoa maps are precursor products of the Copernicus Global Land High Resolution Hot Spot Monitoring activity. As demonstration datasets, they may be used for visualization purposes, but not for detailed statistical analyses.
Related SDGs and targets

GOAL 15: Life on land, GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, GOAL 2: Zero Hunger
Related Topics

Food and Agriculture, Land Use in Agriculture, Food Production

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