Last week I was delighted to attend the official handover ceremonies of cocoa plantlet nurseries to three farming cooperatives across Côte d’Ivoire, in the latest stage of The Cocoa Plan.

The Enterprise Cooperative of Yamoussoukro (ECOYA), Agricultural Cooperative of Zoukougbeu (CADZOU), and the Association of the Women Producers of Coffee and Cocoa cooperative (AFPCC), belong to a group of six local contracted co-ops who are distributing higher yielding, disease resistant plants to farmers.

Developed by the Nestlé R&D Center in Abidjan, a total of 140,000 of these 'super cocoa trees' have already been established in plots of 20,000 each at seven cocoa nurseries, including one in Abidjan. As the rainy season is just starting, June is the perfect month for young plantlets to find the right soil, so it was high time for the first generation to be released.

Yamoussoukro was the first city to celebrate this event. Alphonse N' Goran, Chairman of ECOYA, gave me and my Nestlé colleagues - Cheikh Mboup, Head of Agronomy, R&D, and Kam-Rigne Laossi, Project Manager, R&D - a very warm welcome. Speaking to the various village heads and the members of his cooperative, he declared that Nestlé was offering them ‘a cocoa for the future’.

The second stage handover took us to Daloa. We were greeted by members of CADZOU and Local Director of Agriculture Kouaho Assi, who said that the issue of ageing cocoa plantations in Côte d’Ivoire underlines the importance of this project for the future of the country’s cocoa culture.

The village of Divo, located in South Bandama, 150 km from Abidjan, was our final stop. Agathe Vanié, President of the 600 women-member AFPCC cooperative and organiser of the event, gave a moving speech in which she described the cocoa nursery as “the most beautiful of all presents”.

Agathe said The Cocoa Plan symbolised a revolution for the women of South Bandama, as it has finally enabled them to fight for their right to possess plots of land. Like most of her colleagues, Agathe has never been to school, and so does not know how to either read or write. She says she holds this project dear because she believes it will help her village to move out of poverty.

Agathe encouraged all the villagers to stop selling their plots of land and to join The Cocoa Plan: “We have to fight so that it becomes a success," she said. “The land we have is our only wealth.”

There are more than 500,000 small farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, the majority of whom are not motivated to produce premium cocoa, which is declining in both quantity and quality. For me, seeing The Cocoa Plan in action shows that while it is not a quick fix for the many issues facing the cocoa farming communities we work with, it is providing people with the incentive to improve their industry, and a real reason to feel proud of it.  I think that is an excellent start.

You can see my pictures from the three ceremonies here.

 

I was pleased to be invited to speak at the Society for International Development’s annual conference in Washington D.C. recently.

'Common ground on foreign aid: deepening the dialogue', included a broad-based audience of more than 500 people actively engaged in the field of international development. My co-panelists included Jon Ortmans from the Kauffman Foundation/Global Entrepreneurship Week, Michael Levett from CDC Development Solutions and Robert Mosbacher, Jr.of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. The audience for my session primarily consisted of entrepreneurs who do business at the local and community levels.

One of the most interesting things I took from the discussion was the degree to which they thought of Nestlé as only a chocolate company. They didn’t realise that we are the world’s largest food and beverage company, and I sensed their genuine surprise at the extent of our engagement. Not only were they interested to learn that we produce some of the USA’s best-known brands, including Lean Cuisine, Gerber and Purina, but also that because of our global commitment to Creating Shared Value, we are still able to provide a lot of support to communities at local level, particularly in our three focus areas of nutrition, water, and rural development.

Using The Cocoa Plan as an example, as I described the research and development work Nestlé has undertaken to develop higher-yielding, hardier cocoa plantlets (young plants used for plant propagation) and the steps we’ve created to take them to local farmers:

• Hardier cocoa plantlets are brought to farmers so that they will get more yield on less land
• Farmers are trained in best practice techniques to improve yields and water management
• The supply chain is then improved with more streamlined collection and distribution, directly increasing farmers’ income

I think the examples I shared underscored that Nestlé isn’t just focused on the short-term, but that our investments are meaningful and long-term. We participate in multi-stakeholder engagement to enhance social and working conditions in cocoa farming regions by collaborating with organisations like the The World Cocoa Foundation, with the goal of driving our business and strengthening local communities in ways that are truly sustainable. I was proud to join in this productive discussion, and based on the feedback I later received from my fellow panelists and audience members, I believe people appreciated learning about the work we do and the merits of Creating Shared Value.

Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, visited the Nestlé R&D Centre in Abidjan last week for an insight on Nestlé’s commitment to sustainability in cocoa. Accompanied by Klaus Zimmermann, Senior Vice President R&D, and Serigne Diop, Head of R&D Centre, Abidjan, Mr Zoellick observed the activities of cocoa nurseries and took part in a discussion with farmers at the Centre. Mr Zoellick was impressed that a global company like Nestlé was working with local producers to help make products of a global standard. He added that it was encouraging to see local jobs created and emphasised the importance of connecting global and local. The Centre, which was inaugurated nine months ago, focuses on improving the quality of locally-sourced raw materials, including cocoa, coffee and cassava. In addressing the problem of disease and ageing plantations affecting the West African cocoa harvest, Nestlé has transferred its propagation technology to the site in Abidjan from its R&D Centre in Tours, France. The plant science activities are part of the CHF 110 million group-wide initiative The Cocoa Plan, which was launched last October. The plan is an important and significant part of broad, collaborative efforts to improve the cocoa supply chain and the lives of cocoa farmers and communities. This includes improving the quantity and quality of yields by providing 12 million stronger productive plantlets to farmers over the next ten years and teaching farmers more efficient farming methods.