Developing a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable cocoa industry
The USAID-supported Vietnam Sustainable Cocoa for Farmers (SCF) project was a 30-month initiative that built on the achievements of the SUCCESS Alliance project. The project improved the economic well-being of Vietnamese smallholder farmers by helping develop a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable cocoa industry in Vietnam.
ACDI/VOCA and its local partner, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), worked with cocoa farmers, nursery owners and fermentary operators in eight districts in the Dak Lak and Lam Dong provinces to:
- increase the volume of sustainably produced cocoa in Vietnam
- ensure quality at all levels of the cocoa value chain
- transfer the cocoa development approach to local institutions by enhancing capacity
The project’s activities worked with all cocoa-value-chain actors and included farmer training on good agricultural practices and post-harvest handling as well as cocoa nursery support. The project also worked to increase farmers’ access to high-quality cocoa seedlings, establish business service centers and partner with local organizations and institutions to strengthen the quality of Vietnamese cocoa.
Through this value chain approach, SCF continued to improve the incomes of smallholder cocoa farmers in Vietnam and encourage local providers to support Vietnamese cocoa farmers in the future.
SCF worked with 3,234 cocoa producers, including 94 training facilitators which lead 103 cocoa clubs. Approximately 40,000 seedlings were distributed to farmers in Dak Lak Province—the equivalent of an additional 36 hectares of monocropped cocoa. Additionally, ACDI/VOCA completed 1,396 farmer field school sessions with 3,025 farmers in Dak Lak and Lam Dong.
SCF established three business service centers in three districts and continues to provide technical assistance in business management and business plans. SCF worked with four more farmers to establish two new fermentaries in Lam Dong and Dak Lak Provinces.
