The "sustainable cocoa and women in leadership
roles" project focuses on smallholder cooperatives that are supported
through coaching and technical assistance to realize better cocoa quality and
increased cocoa productivity in sustainable agroforestry cultivation. These
measures help them to sell their cocoa beans at a better price, but also to
benefit from economies of scale through increased volume. In addition, through
agroforestry cultivation and the sustainable regeneration of productive land
along river landscapes, they make a concrete contribution to climate protection
and the maintenance of regional water management.
The larger the value that can be created locally, the more
resilient their ecosystem becomes. For instance, social entrepreneurs are supported
to professionally implement post-harvest processing practices of cocoa beans,
including using cocoa beans in pulp in freshly cut pods, in their community in
specially established central collection, processing, control and distribution
centres. At the same time, when establishing an additional centre, it is
managed as a profitable organization. An appropriate infrastructure is
essential for the centres. Thus, in addition to fermentation boxes and drying
facilities, loyalty with the smallholder farmers, including technical
assistance and paying fair cocoa prices, is certainly important, as is the
support of accounting and commercialization at the centre level in a broader
sense.
