Roll Out the Nestlé Cocoa Plan with Cocoa Farmers
Africa represents 72% of the world cocoa production. Our company globally buys around 60% of its cocoa from West Africa.
The Nestlé Cocoa Plan, introduced in 2009, aims to increase farmers’ profitability, secure high-quality cocoa for our business, and address supply chain issues such as child labour, gender inequality and poor social conditions.
We are working with independent partners like the Fair Labor Association, International Cocoa Initiative, World Cocoa Foundation and UTZ Certified, to tackle child labour, improve cocoa farming and give transparency and credibility to the Plan.
Our company has launched the Plan in major cocoa-growing communities, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, with the objective of sourcing 175,000 tonnes of cocoa by 2018.
Our progress
In 2016, we sourced 130,000 tonnes of cocoa in the region through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan.
We delivered a total of 2.2 million new cocoa plantsand trained 57,000 farmers through Nestlé Cocoa PlanBuilding schools
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As part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, our company made a commitment to build or refurbish 40 schools in 2012 over four years in Côte d’Ivoire.
By 2015, we built or refurbished 42 schools with our partners, including the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), enabling nearly 3,000 children to go to school for the first time, achieving our 2016 target early.(img)
In Ghana, three schools and eight boreholes have been constructed to benefit about 14,000 people in the Eastern and Ashanti regions.
We have also built five Village Resource Centres (VRCs) in the country as part of the Plan. These are containers based in schools and equipped with computers with child-friendly software and Internet access.
Schoolchildren can boost their skills with the Information Communication Technology (ICT) education available at the VRCs. At the same time, the VRCs help provide local farmers with audio-visual training on good agricultural practices.
Before the introduction of community-based resource centres, farmers were only trained when Agricultural Extension Officers organised capacity building programmes in the community. Farmers are now trained regularly through video tutorials in the local Akan language. The digital curriculum includes topics such as application of fertilizer and pesticides management, developed in partnership with trade partners, and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
Empowering female farmers
In rural communities, thousands of women are reaping the rewards from Nestlé’s technical assistance, farming practices and high-yield, disease-resistant plantlets.
One of the thousands of women benefiting from the Nestlé Cocoa Plan is Agathe Vanié, President of COPAZ, a cocoa cooperative based in Divo in central-western Côte d'Ivoire, mainly composed of, and led by women.
Her organisation, the Association of Female Coffee-Cocoa Producers of Sud-Bandama (AFPCC), is the first female owned cooperative for cocoa and coffee production. In 2010, her cooperative joined the Nestlé Cocoa Plan.
The company has provided her 600 women cooperative with high-yield, disease-resistant cocoa seedlings and the technical assistance necessary to set up a nursery.
It has also bought the cooperative a delivery truck to help