THE COCOA SNAPSHOT
15/16 MID YEAR REVIEW

Bringing you news and updates about the Cocoa Horizons program from around the world.

The Cocoa Horizons Foundation’s mission is to improve the livelihoods ofcocoa farmers and their communities through the promotion of sustainable,
entrepreneurial farming, improved productivity and community development.
This first snapshot includes a quick recap of our approach and methodology,
as well as mid-year updates from our three partner countries - Cote d’Ivoire,
Ghana and Tanzania.

SCALING IMPACT AND DRIVING CHANGE THROUGHPRODUCTIVITY AND COMMUNITY ACTIVITIESOur program activities are designed to help farmers improvetheir productivity and enable their communities to flourish. All
our work is underpinned by our ongoing commitment toimproving traceability, transparency and verification.

PRODUCTIVITY
Farmer Training

Education

Farmer Financing

Women’s Empowerment

Farmer SupportOURMETHODOLOGYVERIFICATIONWE’RE CONFIDENT IT’S WORKING, SO
YOU CAN BE TOO
We have independent verification tests in place tomake sure everything is operating as it should be –from our productivity and community
interventions, to our data collection andtraceability.

COMMUNITYChild Protection
HealthIn line with guidance from CocoaAction, we have developed an in-depth
methodology to achieve our mission as quickly and sustainably as possible.
You can find a quick summary below.
We have three methodologies tailored to meet the demands of our threepartner countries, but they all contain the following core elements.

BEST PRACTICE
STARTING OUT RIGHTFARMER GROUPS

As well as ensuring every Farmer Group has aneffective internal management system, we ask all
new partners to commit to several key documents.
These include:

Supplier Code
The Cocoa HorizonsConvention
The Child Labour Charter
A Declaration on
Protected Forests

TRACEABILITYFARMERSBUILDING TRACEABILITY INTO
THE CORE OF OUR PROGRAM

Cocoa Horizons Contract(which outlines farmer
obligations in line withour methodology)

We assign all farmers a unique code and train themin traceability issues, so that we can trace all of our
cocoa from the warehouse back to the farmer whogrew it.

DATA
THE MORE WE KNOW, THE
MORE WE CAN DO
The more data we can gather about our programof activities, the faster we can improve. That’s
why we’re working hard to collect and digitise
training records, traceability records, farmer
survey results and mapping data about farmers
and their crops. We are on track to collect thisdata for 70,000 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.

TRANSPARENCYCOCOA HORIZONS PREMIUM USES
Farmer/Farmer Group Cash Premium

27%

100% VISIBILITY ON WHERE THE MONEY GOES

Community18%

We want all our customers to know exactly how we spend
the premiums they pay. Here’s an overview of our costs inCote d’Ivoire – you can always find out more about ouractivities by looking online.

Productivity41%

Administration, Verification andProgram Management

14%

TOTAL

100%

PRODUCTIVITY
Our productivity interventions target farmer
training, support and financing. This means
providing access to everything from tools, inputs andplanting material, to credit schemes and coaching.

Our Farmer Trainers

PRODUCTIVITY

Our Farmer Trainers are a critical part of our Farmer Groups. They collectdata and register new farmers, and provide training via the Farmer Field
Schools in topics such as cocoa quality, traceability, sustainability, health& safety, and child protection.
Our first Farmer Trainer accreditation program started last year, and will
see at least 200 handpicked community members trained in agronomy,
adult education and farming as a business. Our goal is to build trainers’
knowledge and expertise, and transform them into coaches.

Training Methods

PRODUCTIVITY

We provide training via Farmer Field Schools and individual
group member coaching sessions, offering modules ontraceability, farming practices, business skills, child protection
and gender equality.

Farm Finance

PRODUCTIVITY

We have launched a pilot finance project in Cote d’Ivoire, which will help farmers accessfinance for productivity investments, farm services and ongoing farmer coaching. We’recurrently testing the project with 1,000 farmers from 20 Farmer Groups.

Education

COMMUNITY
All our community interventions target education, childprotection, women’s empowerment or health.

Child Protection

COMMUNITY

We are providing infrastructure improvements, materials andequipment to schools in our farmer communities. We’re also working
to create or strengthen community-based school management
committees, which support students and monitor school attendance
rates. Additionally, HORIZONS customers have the opportunity topartner with the Foundation to build schools in cocoa
communities with the greatest need.

COMMUNITY

Our Child Protection Campaign is working with Farmer Groups
and cocoa communities to raise awareness around child labour
issues. We are forming a Child Protection Committee and forthe next season are preparing to reach 1,000 farmer
households with a monitoring and remediation system pilot.

Women’s Empowerment

COMMUNITY

We provide training in women’s rights and empowerment, andgender sensitivity. Our aim is to increase the participation ofwomen in Farmer Groups and community governance structures,
giving them the opportunity to generate income.
In select communities, we are also offering women the chance totrain in agroforestry, so they have the skills and knowledge to run
their own, sustainable agricultural plots.

HealthCOMMUNITY

Our health awareness work is aimed at improving access to drinking
water and improving sanitation facilities in schools. The healthtraining includes topics such as hygiene and nutrition, often throughrelevant examples such as hand washing and safe water storage.

COUNTRY UPDATESCOTE D’IVOIRE

September 2015 - March 2016

START DATE: 2014
The Cocoa Horizons Program started first in Cote d’Ivoire in 2014,and had its verification tested from March to June 2015. We’repleased to report that the program is thriving and we’re now
implementing an updated methodology (version 2), based on ourlearnings here.

Community

COTE D’IVOIRE

Three school extensions, including three new classrooms per
school, two headmaster offices, teacher housing, canteens,
solar energy, furniture and a borehole

Productivity

2,000 children provided with school kits, including a school bag,pencils, notebooks and a ruler

COTE D’IVOIRE

Productivity package implemented in 65 cooperatives
and four branches of Biolands*

So far this year, we’ve distributed 233 birth certificates
Women provided with training in literacy, productivity andentrepreneurship

37,487 registered farmers
Training offered to all registered farmers in good
agricultural practices, traceability, quality, health andenvironmental issues
Two new mechanisms for more efficient fertiliser
distribution reaching 465 farmers
29 new nurseries established in farmer groups,
producing 467,750 seedlings for replanting needs
29 demonstration plots established as of 2015
Farmer finance accessible in 21 cooperatives and four
Biolands branches. About 1,770 savings accounts havebeen opened so far

Health activities included construction of boreholes and latrines

GHANA
START DATE: DECEMBER 2015
Our activities in Ghana have been focused on 16 cocoa districts in the Eastern,
Central and Ashanti regions of the country. We’ve accomplished a lot in the
short time since the project started – you can see our progress below.

Access to crop protection provided to 18 cooperatives*Biolands is Barry Callebaut’s direct sourcing and farmservices business

ProductivityGHANA

7,450 farmers already registered by April 2016
Farmers from 594 different farmer groups in 16 districts have joined so far
Recruitment of Technical Officers and District Managers underway (ten District
Managers have been trained so far)Training took place for 12 purchasing assistants in traceability and cocoa quality
factors
Developed training schedules for lead farmers responsible for productivity coaching
Farm and crop mapping is under development
The farm finance needs of the farmers are currently being studied to design theright offering

Community

GHANA

An infrastructure survey to assess needs isbeing conducted in all villages and societies
until the end of August
Staff, including lead farmers, will contributeto and attend child labour information
sessions and conduct at least one
sensitisation action per village this current
seasonTANZANIASTART DATE: OCTOBER 2015
Tanzania is a special country because the entire crop is produced organically– only natural fertilisers are used. The Cocoa Horizons Foundation operates
in Tanzania in partnership on a Special Project and will complement these
activities with funding from Cocoa Horizons volumes in FY16/17.

Productivity

TANZANIA

Community

TANZANIAIdentified 15 demonstration plots – their
preparation started in April

Supply of school infrastructure, such as 21 classrooms, 490
desks, books, offices and latrines

Established three nurseries and distributed
90,000 seedlings

Child protection and women’s empowerment training
started this fiscal year

Plans for farm mapping are in progress withgoal to have 1500 farmers mapped this season
Productivity activities planned over the next
three years include:
supply of pruning tools
training of 4500 farmers (1500 per year)
establishment of 45 demo plots (15per year)
supply of 300,000 seedlings(100,000 per year)
creation of a pruning team to supply
farmers

We hoped you enjoyed this ﬁrst half-yearly snapshot from the Cocoa Horizons Foundation.
If you’d like any further information about our approach, methodology or in-country progress, please get in touch.
You can expect our year-end report in January 2017.