2030/2050 Cocoa

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L) is one of the main “commodities” marketed in the world as a raw material for the production of food, beverages and other industrial products. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), this crop has a history linked to millions of family producers in the Andean Region, Central America, the Caribbean and Brazil. This crop is key to food security, since it is the main source of income for producers, as well as a viable option for climate change adaptation as a replacement for other crops (coffee and bananas). It has great potential for linking up with the private sector and developing new markets and marketing channels with premium value.

The LAC cocoa sector faces great challenges in the coming decades, especially in order to position itself in the segment of fine quality and aroma cocoa. These challenges are technological, organizational and institutional in nature. The most important technological challenge is sustainably increasing productivity. Among potential solutions are the development of materials resistant to local pests, integrated disease management strategies (causing 30% to 40% of production losses), improving the management of the agroforestry cocoa system, the measurement of cadmium in the environment and in grains, the generation of key traceable information for quality certification and access to value markets.

The objective of this seed fund is to create a multi-agency cocoa platform that strengthens LAC's position as a net producer and exporter of quality cocoa. The platform will promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences and facilitate the elaboration of a wide-ranging regional project, involving public-private, national, regional and international institutions, to comprehensively address technological, organizational and institutional issues of the value chain. cocoa. This platform will be identified as "Cacao 2030-2050".