The cocoa sector will face critical sustainability challenges in 2025, and ofi has positioned itself at the forefront in addressing these issues by implementing initiatives outlined in its Cocoa Compass Impact Report (2023), which shares latest sustainability progress from across its cocoa supply chain.
Since 2018, ofi’s Cocoa Compass baseline for regenerative agriculture includes:
- 8.9 million trees distributed for agroforestry programmes
- 57,000 hectares of land rehabilitated globally
- 970,000 farmers trained in Good Agricultural Practices
The Singapore-based company has pledged to tackle deforestation and drive regenerative agriculture by achieving seven landscape partnerships and bringing over a million hectares under regenerative agriculture by 2030.
‘Choices for Change’
These new targets align with ofi’s company-wide ‘Choices for Change’ strategy and will be further boosted by the cocoa business’ tree carbon stock target of 15 million trees by 2030, converting as many farms as possible to agroforestry.
ofi's, Head of Cocoa Sustainability, Andrew Brooks, said: “Greater action and urgency will be needed to address climate change and protect nature and farmer livelihoods in the years to come.
“Since the launch of Cocoa Compass in 2019, we have now published four years of data and insights from our cocoa sustainability programmes, partnerships, and tools, which we are using to raise our regenerative agriculture ambition and focus attention where we can make the greatest difference, including regenerative farming.
“Change at scale requires industry, national governments, communities and civil society to work together. So, learning from the success of partnerships like RESTORE and LASCARCOCO, we plan to go faster and further by co-developing several new and ambitious multi-stakeholder landscape partnerships that create impact beyond individual programs and help to drive collective action.”
One of ofi’s examples is a pioneering project with Mars and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) in Indonesia, where ofi is implementing 20 hectares of agroforestry plots to test Sloping Agriculture Land Technology (SALT). This innovative technique involves planting cocoa trees in combination with fruit trees, timber and food crops so the root systems bind the soil on the hillsides and help prevent erosion.
Biochar project
In a separate initiative, ofi launched its first cocoa biochar project with LOTTE, Fuji Oil Co, and MC Agri Alliance.
Biochar is a regenerative farming practice that locks up carbon removed from the atmosphere into soils, contributing to improved soil health and reducing the carbon footprint of cocoa.
The partnership complements the installation of biomass boilers in many of ofi’s cocoa factories, most recently in Mannheim, Germany.
The circular biomass initiative will turn discarded cocoa pod husks into biochar through combustion in biochar cone machines. Biochar will lock in the carbon from the cocoa crop residues, which would otherwise be released back into the atmosphere by decomposition and should also benefit the soil where the cocoa is grown.
Applying biochar on cocoa farms can help improve soil fertility and structure and stop erosion and the loss of soil nutrients into ground and surface waters.
“Together with LOTTE and partners, we plan to implement a biochar pilot that aims to reduce carbon footprint of the cocoa crop and waste on the farm by using the residual cocoa pods. This circular biomass initiative is one way we’re supporting our customers to take climate action as well as restoring natural capital, which is aligned with our own Cocoa Compass ambition and ofi’s 2050 Net Zero target," said Brooks.
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