Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate. The essentials united.
Training and transparency
For many years we have been training farmers in better farming practices such as weeding, pruning, reducing losses from pests and disease and establishing good fermentation and drying processes to nurture the inherent flavours of the cocoa beans. The training aims to improve the quality and yield of the farmer crops and ultimately to increase their income.
In 2007 we joined forces with UTZ CERTIFIED and other stakeholders to develop a sustainable cocoa programme for certification, which has now become part of our farmer field school training programmes.
Having our own people working closely with the farmers and their co-operatives allows us to improve the quality at the beginning of the supply chain. Quick payments and transparency of our buying prices to farmers are part of our standard procedures to help our suppliers maximise their incomes.
In 2008, through our diverse training programmes, we reached over 17,000 farmers. We introduced a farmer field school programme, which has shown very positive results to date. Statistics indicate a 30% increase in farm productivity and a significant improvement in bean quality. Higher yield and a better price due to the quality have increased farmers' income by a staggering 40%.