Integrated agroforestry and 'low-carbon' cocoa project

Together with the Biochar Fund, the CocoaMasters have launched the world's first project to test biochar on the growth of cocoa trees, within a context of highly integrated agroforestry systems.

Biochar is a carbon-rich soil improver made from agricultural wastes. It may help improve soil fertility and crop productivity, by boosting positive soil dynamics in an organic way. 

If biochar helps cocoa seedlings to grow healthier, faster and in an organic manner, then it may offer an alternative to the establishments of monocultures, which depend on deforestation. 

Biochar may also offer a way into the market for organic cocoa, as well as in that of 'low-carbon' farm products, as biochar sequesters carbon in a permanent manner.

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Sustainable cocoa-drying ovens: solar + biogas

The CocoaMasters are helping to revolutionize the process of drying cocoa seeds while bringing women into this traditionally male-dominated economic activity. The project reduces deforestation, tackles climate change, and yields a product of superior quality.

In partnership with Women for Green Growth, the CocoaMasters have developed a renewable energy technology based on passive solar energy and biogas, which will be used to dry cocoa beans.

Millions of tons of cocoa are currently dried with the use of fire wood. For each ton of dried cocoa, between 3 to 5 tonnes of wood are consumed. This is a major, but often unacknowledged, factor in the rampant deforestation witnessed in the major cocoa-growing regions of West and Central Africa. We aim to change this situation.

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