New crop offers hope to Peruvian cocoa farmers

Dramatic drops in cocoa prices on the global market have already threatened the incomes of cocoa farmers, and now they face yet another challenge. The European Union has adopted stricter rules for how much cadmium is permitted in chocolate. Cadmium is a harmful substance that enters cocoa beans from contaminated farmland. To continue earning a living, many farmers face only one choice: to switch to farming another crop. But the poorest farmers in Peru can’t take that step without assistance.

For almost 30 years, the cooperative Norandino has been a helping hand for thousands of farmers in Peru. Thanks to the cooperative, their harvest and product quality are increasing and they have access to loans, markets and agricultural expertise.

And now, Norandino has come to the rescue of the hard-hit cocoa farmers once again. Through a pilot project, the cooperative supports 160 smallholder farmers in the transition from cocoa to sugarcane; a crop that is easy to sell and earns higher incomes than cocoa.

This is how Norandino helps the smallholder farmers:

For a farmer, switching entirely from one crop to another is a difficult and high-risk enterprise. But if the approach goes as planned, then they’ll soon have more than twice the income that they earned farming cocoa. This is a huge step forwards in the standard of living of these farmers, who have so far been among the land’s poorest agriculturalists.

We’ve had a productive partnership with this Peruvian cooperative for more than 20 years. The projects we support are always geared towards the organization’s poorest participants. This project is no exception. Switching to a new crop is a difficult and expensive step for many smallholder farmers. We assist these farmers with the transition by offering financial assistance and training in agricultural skills. We financed most of the pilot project’s needs, and we made a donation for the three vital processing installations. The transition to new crops has made the farmers more resilient in the face of climate change, which is an important element of our strategy. Rabo Foundation added value to this project by offering high-risk capital and specific products and services to guide the transition.

Give as many smallholder cocoa farmers as possible a new, stable income: that is Norandino’s goal in this three-year pilot project. The first 160 farmers will complete the project in 2021. If it is a success, then the cooperative is eager to expand the approach to other regions.