Zowasel, an agricultural technology company leveraging data science has partnered with Barry Callebaut to implement the Innovative Cocoa Sustainability Programs to support smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
The partnership, which covers commercial agreements and the cocoa horizons sustainability program, aims to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers, their communities, and the planet by promoting sustainable farming practices, gender and nutrition programs, entrepreneurial farming, and landscape protection.
Adriaan Verbeke, managing director of Barry Callebaut Nigeria, spoke on the partnership and said: “sustainability is at the heart of our business model and values.”
“We are proud to partner with Zowasel, a disruptive company in supply chain sustainability innovations, to promote professional and sustainable cocoa farming across Nigeria,” Verbeke said in a statement.
“This innovative partnership will help drive the implementation and impact of our cocoa sustainability initiatives.”
Barry Callebaut has committed that by 2025, its products will use 100-percent sustainable carbon and forest-positive ingredients – which mean the products, retain more carbon than released, he said.
According to him, the company is committed to sustainable cocoa production to help ensure continuous cocoa supplies and improve farmers’ livelihoods.
In the last year, Zowasel has opened several remote crop centre infrastructures in key cocoa-producing communities across Ondo, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom states.
Read also: We earned N122.89bn from cocoa beans in Q1 — FG
The infrastructures deployed agronomists and sustainability experts to the field to work and collect data from farmers, evaluate agricultural practices, offer free sustainability training programs, and farm inputs recommendations to farmers.
Zowasel is deploying its traceability solutions to monitor and trace its supply chain from farm to factory, providing Barry Callebaut with insights to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers.
This includes paying a premium to farmers in compliance, financial support, gender inclusion, nutrition, landscape protection, and crop diversification.
Jerry Oche, chief executive officer of Zowasel, “you don’t often get multinationals like Barry Callebaut to partner with startups to innovate and challenge the status quo that will shape the future of sustainability and global supply chain.”
“It’s a huge validation and opportunity for us, and we would surely make it count,” he said.
Despite the growing global demand for Nigerian cocoa, smallholder farmers in Nigeria are struggling to sustain and profit from their plantation.
This is due to old cocoa plantations, declining yields, poor farming practices, and volatile cocoa prices that have worsened farming households’ food insecurity and poverty.
The partnership offers Zowasel and Barry Callebaut the opportunity to work together to help smallholder farmers increase their yields and receive premium payments, otherwise known as living Income differential while working in harmony with the environment so that cocoa farming will remain sustainable for many years to come.
