CFI PROGRESS AND PARTNERSHIP IN A CHANGING COCOA LANDSCAPE

Nathalie Faulkner, Cocoa Life Sustainability & Data Manager and CFI Lead, Mondelēz International

Today we have published our annual Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI) Progress Report, sharing an update on key activities from the CFI reporting period of October 2023 to September 2024, and how we have been supporting CFI’s ambitions through Cocoa Life.

Mondelēz International has been an active partner of CFI since its inception in 2017, working closely alongside the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, and about 36 other world-leading chocolate and cocoa companies to help decrease deforestation and help restore forest areas.

By the end of the CFI reporting period in September 2024 in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, around 192,600 farms were mapped, deforestation risk assessments conducted across approximately 356,000 hectares, and close to 1,134,000 multi-purpose trees distributed for on-farm planting via agroforestry¹. In addition, approximately 506,000 cocoa seedlings were distributed in Ghana². We also offered targeted farming practices, providing Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) trainings to around 63,000³ farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and approximately 22,600² in Ghana.

We continued our CFI approach of piloting, learning and scaling – investing in partnerships and driving ‘smart innovations’ through advanced farm mapping technology, agroforestry techniques and on- & off-farm tree planting.

Key projects include:

• Supported activities to help restore forests by working with partners to implement the Modified Taungya System (MTS). From October 2023 to September 2024, ~170 farmers in Ghana were trained in MTS². In 2024, we expanded the MTS initiative to a new region.
• Planted more trees promoting agroforestry as part of our Carbon Booster Project to help sequester carbon from the atmosphere aiming to have a bigger positive climate impact.
• Continued to increase the understanding of our impact on forests through farm mapping, leveraging remote sensing data through our ongoing partnership with Satelligence, and applying learnings to help reduce carbon emissions.
• Worked in collaborative action across landscapes through stakeholder landscape initiatives including the Asunafo-Asutifi partnership in Ghana that seeks to address deforestation in an area prioritized for intervention.
• In the last year, MDLZ teams also focused on accelerating climate action efforts, achieving approximately a 12% reduction in end-to-end GHG emissions across our value chain compared to 2018. This has been achieved in part due to the important contribution made by Cocoa Life’s actions to help protect and restore forests in cocoa regions⁴.

WORKING IN COLLABORATION TO MOVE CFI FORWARD

Cedric van Cutsem, Senior Director Cocoa Life, Mondelez International

Over the past year, we have continued to scale the program with our partners, focusing on our core ambitions of helping to support farmers’ livelihoods, lift cocoa communities, and protect and restore forests. By the end of 2024, approximately 91%⁵ of cocoa volume for Mondelēz International’s chocolate brands were sourced through Cocoa Life, and we’d reached around 208,000¹ registered farmers and approximately 3,200 communities.

We’ve done this through partnerships and initiatives that aim to help strengthen the resilience of the cocoa supply chain and unlock new opportunities for cocoa communities. Despite the challenging cocoa farming conditions that impacted the yields in 2023/2024 versus 2022/2023, our latest impact data suggests that Cocoa Life registered farmers saw less impact on their total production versus the country average (down 8% (Cocoa Life) compared to down 20% (national average)). This can be partly attributed to the climate resilient practices they have learnt and implemented through their participation in the Cocoa Life program.

As we move into the final year of Phase Two of CFI, I have reflected on how far we have come and am encouraged by the progress the sector has made. Together we have scaled up programs to help address deforestation in cocoa growing areas; benefited from constructive dialogue on the challenges we aim to help solve; and shared learnings in CFI working groups and reports. But there is still some way to go on our ambition to seek to end deforestation and help restore forest areas.

The cocoa sector continues to face interconnected systemic challenges, further complicated by environmental changes, unsustainable price volatility, and new regulations – putting cocoa production and farmer livelihoods at risk. Despite supply being hindered by a combination of factors including extreme weather, and with lower production causing price rises, we remain focused on our efforts to support a more thriving cocoa sector and help improve supply chain resilience.

With many of the original CFI ambitions around addressing deforestation becoming mandatory through upcoming regulations, the cocoa sector must come together to define the future ambitions of CFI. For example, exploring what EUDR means at ground level for cocoa farmers and their livelihoods; and collaborating to help support cocoa communities to be compliant.

These complex challenges give rise to opportunity – the realisation that they cannot be solved without collaboration. I see a unique moment for cocoa: to develop public-private partnerships with improved coordination and reduced duplication. I believe that it is only when all stakeholders are considered and supported that long-term aspirations for change can be attained.

We find ourselves in a different place to where we started from with CFI in 2017. We have a far greater understanding of the root causes of challenges that farming communities face, which allows us to develop tools, trainings and initiatives to help support them. We have shared innovations, insights and learnings to help streamline progress and strengthen partnerships. Momentum is building year-on-year. We invite others in the cocoa sector and beyond to help define new CFI ambitions and participate in the collective action needed to make them a reality. 

To learn more about the Cocoa & Forests Initiative, follow #CocoaAndForests and #CocoaLife on LinkedIn, or visit the websites of our partners IDH and the World Cocoa Life Foundation at cocoandforests.org and WorldCocoa.org.