Peru Cocoa Alliance

Location

Huánuco, San Martín and Ucayali, Peru

About the project:

Cocoa has long been a driver of deforestation in Peru. With a precarious production model that typically relies on smallholder farmers producing cocoa from old trees on tiny farms with no access to technical assistance or fair intermediaries, farmers can only achieve low yields. Their solution to low productivity is to further deforest nearby land in an effort to clear more land and increase production to sustain their poor households.

The Peru Cocoa Alliance (Alianza Cacao Perú) was formed as an innovative public-private partnership aiming to enhance the sustainable production capacity of cocoa farmers in the Ucayali, San Martín and Huánuco regions of Peru's Amazon basin. The Alliance was originally initiated by CARANA Corporation, USAID, Peru's National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (DEVIDA), ECOM Agroindustrial Corp, Romex Trading and Acopagro (a cooperative). CARANA, an Initiative 20x20 partner, is a leader and manager of the Peru Cocoa Alliance.

An initial $36 million investment from the Alternative Development program of USAID has enabled Alliance members to:

1. Promote new technology;
2. Improve harvest and post-harvest processes;
3. Promote access to financing;
4. Grant access to differentiated markets.

Through these interventions, the Alliance has improved over 26,000 hectares. Technical assistance granted to more than 18,000 families has increased production of fine-flavor cocoa that can now be sold international markets at a premium, thus improving the livelihoods of local communities while avoiding further deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

Investment type