Forum For Sustainable Cocoa

Cocoa is the most crucial source of family income to many West African people since the region is the key global growing area for this raw material.

- Ian Healey And Philipp Hirt-reger

Cocoa represents the main substance of all the wonderful creations which serve to sweeten our everyday lives, our weekends, our celebrations and which improve our mood when life seems to have treated us unfairly. As we delight in these premium products made of the finest chocolate, we are even prepared to spend five or six Euros for the indulgence. However, the cocoa farmers only profit to a neglectably small extent. The per capita household income of many male and female farmers in West Africa amounts to less than two dollars per day, below the poverty threshold.

The German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa “Forum Nachhaltiger Kakao” has sat out to change this and has brought to life the project PROPLANTEURS. The aim of this initiative is to support around 20,000 cocoa producers – families and cooperatives – in Southeast Ivory Coast to increase their quality and earnings and thus improve income, nutrition and living conditions in general. Above all, women should receive more opportunities to create a better nutritional basis for their families through a reliable source of income.

The Forum is a cooperation between the German confectionery industry, the German food retail trade, civil society organizations and the German government, represented by the Ministry for Food and Agriculture and the Ministry for Economic Development. Twenty-five members of these groups recently traveled to Ivory Coast to follow the trail of the sweetest pleasure and find out for themselves how this project is progressing.

You need to understand sustainability to be sustainable