Abstract
BackgroundThe recent inclusion of the cocoa sector as an option for carbon storage necessitates the need to quantify the C stocks in cocoa systems of Ghana.ResultsUsing farmers’ fields, the carbon (C) stocks in shaded and unshaded cocoa systems selected from the Eastern (ER) and Western (WR) regions of Ghana were measured. Total ecosystem C (biomass C + soil C to 60 cm depth) ranged from 81.8 to 153.9 Mg C/ha. The bulk (~89 %) of the systems’ C stock was stored in the soils. The total C stocks were higher in the WR (137.8 ± 8.6 Mg C/ha) than ER (95.7 ± 8.6 Mg C/ha).ConclusionBased on the cocoa cultivation area of 1.45 million hectares, the cocoa sector in Ghana potentially could store 118.6–223.2 Gg C in cocoa systems with cocoa systems aged within 30 years regardless of shade management. Thus, the decision to include the cocoa sector in the national carbon accounting emissions budget of Ghana is warranted.
Highlights
The recent inclusion of the cocoa sector as an option for carbon storage necessitates the need to quantify the C stocks in cocoa systems of Ghana
A substantial volume of literature is replete with evidence that the reductions in forest cover produced net sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas of the atmosphere [2, 3]
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global C stocks in terrestrial biomass have decreased by 25 % over the past century [3, 4]
Summary
The recent inclusion of the cocoa sector as an option for carbon storage necessitates the need to quantify the C stocks in cocoa systems of Ghana. A substantial volume of literature is replete with evidence that the reductions in forest cover produced net sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas of the atmosphere [2, 3]. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global C stocks in terrestrial biomass have decreased by 25 % over the past century [3, 4]. This corresponds to an annual decline of 1.1 Gt of the global carbon stocks in forest biomass [5].
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