Cocoa Livelihoods Program
Project Dates: 2009-2013
Countries: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria
Contributors: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, major branded manufacturers: The Hershey Company, Kraft Foods and Mars Inc; cocoa processors: Archer Daniels Midland Company, Barry Callebaut, Blommer Chocolate Company and Cargill; and supply chain managers and allied industries: Armajaro, Ecom Agrocacao, Guittard Chocolate Company, Noble Resources S.A., Olam International Ltd., Starbucks Coffee Company and Transmar Commodity Group Ltd.; and contributors to Technical Partners: The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Technical Partners: World Cocoa Foundation (manager), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture/Sustainable Tree Crops Program, ASI, GTZ, SOCODEVI and TechnoServe
Overview
The Cocoa Livelihoods Program will work with approximately 200,000 smallholder, cocoa-growing households in West and Central Africa. The overall goal of the program is to increase farmer income while strengthening local service capacity.
Program Objectives:
1) Improvement of marketing efficiency
- Professionalizing farmer organizations
- Improving quality and value of cocoa
- Expanding group marketing of cocoa
2) Improvement of cocoa production efficiency and quality at the farm level
- Training cocoa farmers in production practices and quality management
- Supporting improvement and expansion of input supply systems
- Supporting research and piloting of innovations in production technology
3) Improvement of farmer competitiveness on diversified cocoa farms
- Training farmers in business and marketing tools
- Developing business service centers with market information components
- Performing market opportunity assessments and disseminating findings
The World Cocoa Foundation has been alerted of hoax emails, claiming lottery prizes associated with the Cocoa Livelihoods Program. These emails are false and should be ignored. We apologize for any inconvenience they may have caused.