CHOCOA 2022: Lutheran World Relief's commitment to the cocoa sector

Lutheran World Relief is proud to sponsor the 10th annual CHOCOA conference to advance social responsibility and private sector collaboration in the cocoa and chocolate industries. Building on our long history of innovation and partnership with farmers, cooperatives, companies and governments in the cocoa sector, we are committed to increasing cocoa productivity and strengthening sustainable livelihoods.

In our cocoa work, we employ a climate-smart agricultural value chain approach that improves access to inputs and technical resources, strengthens local capacity, expands post-harvest processing, and provides greater access to export markets. We strongly believe in helping cocoa farmers and their families earn a living income while increasing opportunities for women and youth. Through our work with extension training, sustainability research and deployment of digital tools such as Cacao Móvil, we are reaching tens of thousands of new farmers with improved techniques and technologies.

Lutheran World Relief also leads cacao programming for the Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas (MOCCA) project, funded by the USDA in a consortium led by Technoserve. Across six countries in Latin America, we use a market systems approach to promote cacao production that focuses on increasing crop yields through agroforestry systems, improving cacao quality, enhancing the professional capacity of both farmers and producer organizations, and facilitating linkages between buyers and sellers.

By considering the potential of the cocoa and chocolate sectors to sustainably accelerate the growth of rural economies, our goal is to establish inclusive and equitable market practices that feed families, increase income for climate-smart farmers and reduce poverty.

Join us at CHOCOCA from June 23-25 where our Associate Vice President for Rural Economies and Agricultural Livelihoods, Paul Macek, will speak about North American perspectives on due diligence and our MOCCA team will showcase Lutheran World Relief's cocoa flavor profile mapping.