Mondelēz International, which owns brands including Cadbury and Dairy Milk, has increased a transparency drive on farms in the world’s largest two cocoa-producing countries that are registered under the firm’s ethical and sustainable sourcing programme. The overall Cocoa Life sourcing programme aims to eventually reach more than 200,000 farmers across six countries and benefit more than a million people by 2022
The programme builds on a commitment to the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI), forming a 2022 target to protect and restore forests in cocoa-growing areas. The programme has been expanded to increase in the number of farmers and communities it supports across six cocoa origin countries: Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil. The overall Cocoa Life sourcing programme aims to eventually reach more than 200,000 farmers across six countries and benefit more than a million people by 2022.
Cocoa traders who sell to Mars, Nestlé, Mondelez and other big brands buy beans grown illegally inside protected areas in Côte d’Ivoire, where rainforest cover has been reduced by more than 80% since 1960. Other milestones reached in 2019 include launching the programme’s first tree registration app for farmers in Ghana that empowers farmers to generate revenue through yields and tree planting and offer compensation for trees destroyed by timber merchants.
The programme has tested a deforestation risk assessment project in Côte d’Ivoire reaching 125,924 hectares of forests covered in the assessment by 2019. This programme will be rolled out to other countries over the next couple of years. The firm has also pledged to map all farms covered by its sustainability scheme using satellite technology, as it strives to eliminate deforestation from its key sourcing regions. The forest conservation efforts of more than 120,000 farmers will be monitored under the scheme.
The news follows other associated plans, such as Mondelez’s female empowerment programme, which was first rolled out in Ghana and the Ivory Coast in 2014, and will now be expanded to Indonesia and the Dominican Republic. It aims to empower women from more than 1,000 communities across areas such as farming, youth, community, livelihoods and the environment.
Source: edie.net
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