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OFI has teamed up with international NGO Rikolto, and the German Development Agency Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), to launch a low-carbon agriculture project with cocoa farmers in Ecuador.

The project, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), aims to support farmers to mitigate against and adapt to the impacts of climate change on cocoa production.

According to OFI, around 1.7 million Ecuadorians dependent on cocoa are threatened by the impacts of climate change, with approximately 60% of cocoa farmers relying on cocoa as their main source of income.

The consortium is co-funded by BMZ and ingredients specialist OFI, with food sustainability organisation Rikolto leading the implementation of OFI’s sustainability programmes.

It seeks to address the impact of unpredictable weather conditions on growing cocoa by training 2,800 farmers in ‘climate-smart’ agriculture. This will support farmers in creating more resilient livelihoods and increase the efficiency of cocoa production.

The project will include implementing agroforestry, a regenerative farming approach that enables cocoa to grow alongside other plant species. The technique can help farmers improve cocoa yields and provide additional income from other planted crops, while sequestering carbon and promoting biodiversity.

Training will be delivered through 600 tailored coaching sessions, or ‘field schools’. The farmers – of whom at least 20% will be women – will be taught to integrate sustainability practices and agricultural standards into existing farming approaches.

The project will also produce 40,000 plants of the rare and native Nacional cocoa variety for distribution, housed within an organic cocoa production community nursery.

OFI’s AtSource sustainability management system will gather insights from the project, enabling best practices and learnings to be shared with national authorities to help inform the country’s climate policy.

Paula Andrea Rueda Peña, sustainability manager at OFI Ecuador, said: “By introducing this low-carbon agriculture approach in our own sustainability programs and those we deliver for our customers, we’re supporting smallholder farmers to innovate the way they manage their farms to boost cocoa productivity and helping them on a path towards achieving a living income”.

She added: “This supports the aims of our overarching sustainability strategy, Choices for Change, to drive climate action and positive change across farming communities”.

Ralf Buss, project manager at GIZ AgriChains Ecuador, commented: “Global problems such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity can only be solved together with the involvement of different sectors and stakeholders. Strategic alliances between the public and private sectors are of fundamental importance here.”

“In this way, innovative projects can be jointly developed and implemented that drive a transformation towards low-emission agriculture and improve the climate resilience of food and agricultural systems, which will also benefit Ecuadorian cocoa producers. This leads to greater sustainability in the global cocoa supply chain.”