Project description

Title: Regional planning and development in Amazonas, Acre and Pará
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Brazil
Partner: Bremer Hachez Chocolade GmbH & Co KG
Overall term: 2007 to 2010

Context

The Amazon rainforests are being destroyed by the encroachment of industrial agriculture. The local population has no access to markets and lacks the expertise to generate value from the biodiversity of the forest and its products for sustainable development. It is estimated, for example, that around 75 tonnes of wild cocoa grow each year along the banks of the Rio Purus, although this cocoa has not previously been exploited commercially.

Objective

Pickers and their families living by the Purus harvest and sell sustainably produced wild cocoa, which improves their income. The cocoa is certified organic by a certification body.

Approach

Some 300 families living in about 65 villages along 1,000 kilometres of Rio Purus coastline were involved in the development partnership. These families find and pick the wild cocoa that grows across wide areas of the alluvial forest.

The development partnership is strengthening the pickers’ cooperative, Cooperativa Agroextrativista do Mapiá e Médio Purus, with capacity development and organisational advice, and by improving its communications. During harvest, the cooperative sends a boat across the river with a crew to transport the cocoa and pay wages. The boat brings the harvest to the municipalities of Santo Elias, Canacuri and Boca do Acre where workers – predominantly women – process the cocoa by breaking open the pods and extracting the edible seeds. These are stored in wooden crates for seven days, which produces a natural fermentation process, and the wild cocoa is then dried in the sun.

The development partnership has invested in better infrastructure by constructing the first local drying facilities. Once the wild cocoa has been dried, it is transported from Boca de Acre direct to the Hachez plant in Bremen for further processing. Luxury chocolate produced from wild cocoa is available through German retailers.

Experience to date shows that quantities harvested vary substantially from year to year. The plan is therefore to plant wild cocoa in what are known as agro-forestry systems, which combine forestry and agricultural methods. Germany’s Regenwald-Institut certifies the plantations.

There is scope for other regional products to be turned into luxury goods. The cooperative is, for example, constructing an oil-press to enable it also to produce plant oils.

Results achieved so far

The impoverished pickers and their families are improving their incomes: monthly average per capita income in the region around the Purus has risen from 23.65 reais (EUR 10) in 2004 to 111.56 reais (EUR 48) in 2008. Thus the development partnership is not just increasing incomes but is also strengthening social cohesion among these families. The natural resources and the species diversity of the rainforest are being protected. The private sector partner has access to high-quality, sustainably-produced cocoa.