Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) and Mondelez International Inc. have announced a new collaboration in Indonesia to create the world’s single largest sustainable commercial cocoa farm.  

The model builds on Mondelez International’s experience with the company’s signature sustainable sourcing program, Cocoa Life, and OFI’s ambition for sustainable cocoa, Cocoa Compass, to test a scalable approach for the future of commercial cocoa farming. From sensors in fields to irrigation systems, the project will use advanced climate smart and plant science technology – rarely used to grow cocoa at this scale – as innovations included in this 2,000-hectare cocoa farm on Seram, the largest island in Maluku province in Indonesia.

The model tests a modernised and professional blueprint for best practice cocoa farming, optimal land usage and farming community planning which will be explored as a potential model for replication across the region. Demand for cocoa is growing across Asia, which is set to become the second largest consuming region of cocoa ingredients in the world. Indonesia is a key cocoa-producing country in the region, but farmers have struggled with rising temperatures, low yields and crop disease.

Combining their respective expertise in cocoa growing research and development, sustainable cocoa farm management, and good agricultural practices, Mondelez International and OFI will tackle these problems by improving the livelihoods of partner cocoa farmers, empowering communities and restoring the environmental productivity of a previously deforested landscape.