Newsletter | November, 2004
More than 150 international participants gathered in Washington, DC in mid-October for WCF's semi-annual Partnerships meeting. Attendees discussed sustainable cocoa partnerships programs in West Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America as well as coordination and advances in cocoa germplasm research and Integrated Pest Management. Representatives from industry and Cote d'Ivoire discussed the child labor certification plan and SAI and GTZ presented a look at the coffee industry's sustainability program. Go to the News and Events section on the WCF website to view the presentations.
WCF Awards
An event with special meaning for the World Cocoa Foundation is the opportunity to present awards to those individuals who have contributed their time and effort to the advancement of sustainable cocoa programs. This year's recipients were honored during a reception at the Partnership meeting:
- Dr. Sonii David, STCP Farmer Field School Coordinator- West Africa Award
- Dan Runde, USAID, Latin America Award, for leadership in establishing the Andean Regional Initiative ACCESO
- Ms. Maggie Meyer, ACDI/VOCA, Southeast Asia Award , for management and coordination of SUCCESS Alliance
- Dr. David Butler, Coordinated Research Award, for maintenance and research on the Trinidad Cocoa Collection
- Ms. Vicki Walker, Winrock International - Social/Educational Programs Award, for dedication to children's education in rural areas of Cote d'Ivoire.
- Mr. Hans Rysgaard, WCF Staff Appreciation Award, for enthusiastically representing WCF in Europe and around the world
- Dr. Jacqueline Balk-Tusa, WCF Staff Appreciation Award, for her perseverance and ability to bring organizations and people together to support sustainable cocoa
New WCF Member
WCF welcomes Kraft Foods as its newest member. Martin Meyer has joined the WCF Executive Committee on behalf of Kraft. Kraft is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in North America and second largest in the world, marketing many popular brands in over 150 countries. Kraft's worldwide company vision is "helping people around the world eat and live better. The company recognizes that its business success is only sustainable if it takes into account the economic, social and environmental foundation on which it is built. Kraft's decision to join WCF was based on the company's desire to promote sustainability in its agricultural supply base.
Communications
www.WorldCocoaFoundation.org received nearly 26,000 visits over the last three months with an average visit of 28 minutes which means visitors are finding a lot of value on the site. More than 43 percent of the visitors are from outside the United States.
West Africa
The Sustainable Tree Crops Program in Ghana, along with CRIG, Ghana's cocoa research organization, will begin filming a farming training video in November. The video will be used as a learning tool to broaden the impact of the Field Schools and reach more farmers. WCF is helping to support this project, which should be completed by the end of the year.
A joint University of Denmark-WCF funded project on suitable tree species in cocoa growing systems is underway in West Africa. The collaboration with STCP, IITA and the national institutions in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon has produced an initial finding that with diminishing forests, improvements in cocoa yields in the future will come about through increased tree species diversification, or cocoa agro forestry.
Bill Guyton, Sue d'Arcy, (Masterfoods) and others will travel to Cote d'Ivoire next week for a series of meetings, including a journalist trip to cocoa farms, co-ops and farmer field schools. The group also will meet with ILO to discuss WACAP and Winrock to learn about vocational education in cocoa farming communities.
Latin America
The Andean Regional Initiative, ACCESO, is moving forward. Jacqueline Balk-Tusa and Bill Guyton traveled to Peru last week to discuss details for the launch of this project in early 2005 and to visit the ICT Project in Tarapoto.
South East Asia
Dr. John Mumford, representing BCCCA, visited the Suslawesi SUCCESS Alliance project in early September where he analyzed the cycle 7 training and long-term demplot survey data and prepared impact assessments of the SUCCESS Alliance training. Dr. Mumford was an early advisor to the SUCCESS project in formulating the field school training in cultural practices as a control measure for the cocoa pod borer. The Papua SUCCESS project began discussing plans for a "Cocoa for Community Development Foundation' to continue implementation of Farmer Field School training beyond SUCCESS Alliance.