Impact of Cash Crops (Cocoa, Rubber Tree) on the Farmers’ Life Quality in Abengourou Department (East of Côte d’Ivoire)

Like Côte d’Ivoire forest area, Abengourou department has not escaped anthropic pressure. The forest in this area was the scene of intense Cocoa farming activities. However, due to the weaknesses and constraints observed in the Cocoa sector, it has been seen that from years 1990 - 2000, most of the farmers have abandoned their Cocoa farms in favor of a gradual conversion in Rubber farming. In fact, this crop is considered to be a new booming income crop that tends to improve and guarantee the farmer’s life quality. This situation leads to an amalgam for the growing of Cocoa or Rubber. This study aims to determine the impact of Cocoa and Rubber farms on the farmer’s life quality in Abengourou (Côte d’Ivoire). Thus, field missions, documents analyze and directive surveys of farmers, cartographic and statistical processing have made it possible to establish correlations between Rubber tree or Cocoa farming and the farmer’s life quality. It follows from the correlations, that after analysis, the Rubber tree would have a positive influence on the farmer’s life quality than Cocoa. Moreover, Human Development Index (HDI) was measured respectively between the Cocoa and Rubber growers in the study area. The HDI of the Cocoa farmers is 0.455 and that of Rubber is estimated to 0.461. So, it is confirmed from these analyses that, in 2016, the growing of Rubber improves the farmer’s life quality more than that of Cocoa in the study area.