The Open Cocoa Chain project of GIZ and Helvetas is more than just a digital solution

From 2025 onwards, only deforestation-free products may be exported to the EU. The EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR) is a challenge for many farmers in countries of the Global South who produce agricultural commodities for export. Take cocoa, for example. From 2025 onwards, cocoa may only be exported to the EU if its production has demonstrably not caused deforestation since 2020.

In cooperation with the National Federation of Cocoa Farmers of Colombia (FEDECACAO) and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, the global Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag) of Germany’s Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) developed the digital innovation “Open Cocoa Chain”. 

At the core of the Open Cocoa Chain is a blockchain-based traceability solution which enables farmers to document their cocoa as deforestation-free along the entire supply chain. In a first step, it allows farmers to record their cocoa from deforestation-free plots via satellite data, using a free application for mobile devices. In a second step, this information is made available for supply chain actors through a transparent and open blockchain. In this way, cocoa farmers can retain or gain access to the EU market through an accessible and interoperable deforestation-free supply chain.

Pilot project in Columbia
 

Aiming to work together with 5,000 farmers, i4Ag is piloting the Open Cocoa Chain in Colombia (Bucaramanga, Huila and Tolima) and Peru (San Martín) with FEDECACAO and Helvetas. Cooperating with extension agents, cooperatives, local processing companies, traders and chocolate brands, i4Ag promotes the Open Cocoa Chain along the entire supply chain. With a focus on boosting digital skills and gender equality in rural communities, the Open Cocoa Chain project not only offers a reliable and transparent monitoring solution, it also seeks to improve the market position of farmers, especially women.

Together with Helvetas, GIZ is developing and implementing training programmes on deforestation monitoring and the use of the application specially designed for the project to enable producers to document their deforestation-free cocoa. At the same time, GIZ and Helvetas are working on the topics of interoperability and the technical development of the blockchain infrastructure by the Open Food Chain Foundation. In this context, GIZ and Helvetas are both working together with cocoa trade and processing companies as well as brands in order to scale up the use of the traceability solution. This integration is being achieved with the aid of application programming interfaces (APIs) with which supply chain data of individual companies is fed into the blockchain.

To scale up digital innovations such as the Open Cocoa Chain sustainably and efficiently, a conducive digital ecosystem is essential. Digital public infrastructures are key in providing the right conditions for scaling up digital solutions. In order to prevent fragmentation and silos, digital public infrastructures are shared by both public and private actors to overcome the same challenges. Digital public infrastructures are therefore developed using open standards and shareable building blocks to ensure interoperability, open access and transparency. 

The Open Cocoa Chain and, more broadly, digital traceability solutions, can meanwhile draw on relevant digital public infrastructures, encompassing asset registries for land monitoring such as the AgStack project by Linux Foundation and common standards for supply chain data. The latter can be a tool to promote more horizontal and non-rivalrous innovation ecosystems in which actors, from farmer to brand, can participate.

GIZ’s Open Cocoa Chain project is a tangible example of how digital innovations can contribute to global ambitions of halting environmental destruction and promoting sustainable agri-food systems. Nevertheless, farmers require further support to be able to participate in increasingly digital food economies. This is not merely a matter of conducive digital infrastructures, it is also a question of data ownership, land rights and living income – some of the fundamental conditions for smallholders to shape the sustainability of global supply chains.

Author: Jerome Scheuren,  Fund for the Promotion of Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag), Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Bonn/Eschborn, Germany; e-mail: Jerome.Scheuren@giz.de

Further Information:

Link to the AgStack project by Linux Foundation