Hershey is hosting a summit in Mexico that is designed to bring together farmers, researchers, industry and government to improve the livelihoods of small-scale cocoa farmers.
A little more than a year after announcing an initiative to restore what the company believes is Mexico’s beleaguered cocoa farming industry, Hershey and cocoa supplier Agroindustrias Unidas de Cacao (AMCO) are hosting the summit in Tapachula, Chiapas, marking the next phase of the company’s “The Mexico Cocoa Project.”
The 10-year, $2.8 million initiative will provide training in farm renovation and Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) along with the distribution of hundreds of thousands of disease-tolerant cocoa trees to restore more than 1,000 hectares of cocoa farmland in the Chiapas region of Southern Mexico that have been devastated by tree disease.
The effort intends to quadruple yields, substantially increase family incomes and contribute to the worldwide supply of sustainable cocoa.
“The summit will be an important means to reach out to the various stakeholders who are critical to bringing back cocoa farming in Mexicoand supporting the family cocoa farmers,” said Hector de la Barreda, vice president and general manager for Hershey Mexico and Central America. “From farmers to producers to government and research institutes, this symposium on cocoa will bring together the right people to begin the process of replanting and restoring cocoa farming in the same area where the ancient Olmecs, Mayans and Aztecs first cultivated cocoa as a food.”
The Cocoa Summit is said by Hershey to be a key milestone for the decade-long project which began in the summer of 2012.
Since the project began more than a year ago, Hershey and AMCO have built and maintained nurseries to grow disease-resistant tree stock. The area has been hard hit by Moniliasis, also known as frosty pod rot, a disease that attacks the fruit of the cacao tree, causing its cocoa beans to become unusable. As a result, cocoa yields in the area have dropped by nearly half since 2005.
Following the summit, the partners will begin distributing the first 100,000 disease-resistant trees to cocoa farmers to begin the rehabilitation of the region’s cocoa plantations.
“This summit is a great opportunity after more than a year of hard work to share the great progress we have made with the producers, build on farmers’ commitment to restore their cocoa farms and regain pride for cocoa growing in the region,” said Tonathiu Acevedo, director of AMCO. “A summit with so many important stakeholders demonstrates the power of what happens when all interested parties come together around a common cause with a goal of benefiting farm families, communities and consumers who love chocolate.”
The inaugural cocoa summit will, said Hershey, help raise awareness among Mexican farmers and across the country about the work under way to return the Mexico cocoa industry to a thriving business. The program partners also hope to grow interest among young adults in working in the cocoa industry.
Participating farmers will be trained in the highest standards of sustainable cocoa and labour practices that will enable them to be certified by third-party cocoa certification NGOs. Farmers who receive cocoa trees and training through the program are free to sell their cocoa to whomever they choose.
