World Cocoa Foundation
| Formation | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 1411 K Street, NW, Suite 500 |
| Location |
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Region served
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Worldwide |
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Membership
|
Mars, Incorporated Nestlé 100+ member companies |
| Barry Parkin | |
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President
|
Richard Scobey |
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Main organ
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Board of directors |
| Website | http://worldcocoafoundation.org/ |
The World Cocoa Foundation is a trade group with 100 member companies with giant manufacturers like Nestlé and Mars, Inc.. The World Cocoa Foundation represents 80% of the global corporate market. Governmental and educational partnerships include The United States Department of Agriculture, and The University of Florida. However, the majority of members are private companies with a focus on the chocolate industry.
CocoaAction, which began in June 2014, is an initiative of twelve giant multinational corporations in the cocoa industry: Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Armajaro, Barry Callebaut, Blommer Chocolate Company, Cargill, ECOM Agroindustrial (ECOM), Ferrero, The Hershey Company, Mars, Inc., Mondelēz International, Nestlé and Olam International. These are the "world’s largest cocoa and chocolate companies" working through CocoaAction "to coordinate their cocoa sustainability efforts" starting with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. CocoaAction aims to increase cocoa production dramatically by encouraging tree-crop smallholders to join cooperatives to improve their opportunities for access to fertilizers and to training on the proper use of fertilizers and pruning.
The World Cocoa Industry has invested millions of dollars in an attempt to reach their goal of doubling Côte d’Ivoire's cocoa production. Côte d’Ivoire depends on its cocoa industry as a major part of its exports. According to the cocoa industry, the small-acreage, low-technology, low-yield, no-fertilizer, family cocoa farms could potentially double their production if modern methods were used. Over the decades, tens of thousands of people set up small, traditional, subsistence cocoa farms in what are now, protected forested areas, such as Côte d’Ivoire's 34,000 -hectare Mont Péko National Park where their forest-clearing threatened the dwindling numbers of elephants and chimpanzees. The World Cocoa Foundation's president, Richard Scobey argues that higher-yield cocoa plantations would "take the pressure off the kind of expansion into protected forest areas that we’ve seen." The United Nations warns of a humanitarian crisis as the 51,000 people removed from the Park, who have lost their livelihood, are now facing food shortages.
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