Initiative led by Agriculture Ministry and CocoaAction Brasil aims to make Brazil the world’s biggest producer of sustainable cocoa  

Fundo Vale attended the First Workshop to Structure the Tactical-Operational Plan for the 2030 Cocoa Innovation Plan, an initiative that aims to develop strategies to boost the growth of cocoa-producing regions in Brazil and establish the country as a global leader in sustainable cocoa production. The event marked the start of the second stage of the initiative and brought together around 70 representatives of the sector from various states, including Bahia and Pará, the country’s largest producers of this commodity. 

The 2030 Cocoa Innovation Plan is being developed collaboratively, involving all the links in the cocoa chain. It covers four main areas: Economic-Productive, Social, Environmental and Governance. It is being implemented in two phases, based on a Strategic Plan, launched in 2023, and a Tactical-Operational Plan, which is the current focus. The initiative is led by the Agriculture Ministry, through its Executive Committee for the Cocoa Farming Plan (CEPLAC), and CocoaAction Brasil, an initiative of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF). 

“This was the first workshop to structure the Tactical-Operational Plan for the 2030 Cocoa Innovation Plan. Further meetings are scheduled for the coming months, to outline the activities needed to achieve the plan’s goals, which include bringing technical assistance to 30,000 producers, expanding access to credit to R$250 million per year, and boosting producers’ productivity and in particular their profitability,” explains Pedro Ronca, the director of CocoaAction Brasil. 

According to Lucimara Chiari, the director of CEPLAC, the event was instrumental in strengthening the participation of different stakeholders. This participation is crucial for the success of the 2030 Cocoa Innovation Plan, which seeks to make Brazil once again produce 400,000 tons of cocoa a year by 2030, thereby becoming an exporter again. 

“It’s important to track the progress of this initiative, as it will strengthen cocoa production in agroforestry systems – one of the solutions that we at Fundo Vale are using to restore areas as part of Vale’s 2030 Forest Goal. (This voluntary corporate goal has two components: to restore 100,000 hectares of forest and to conserve another 400,000 hectares.) In addition, the program is promoting fair and decent working conditions throughout the production chain, which is also our goal,” says Nathalia Cipoleta of Fundo Vale’s Business Promotion and Sustainable Investments Area.