A connected tablet … to map cacao plantations.

This is the limit…

Thanks to this satellite system, Jean-Baptiste can ensure that David’s field doesn’t overlap with any classified or protected forest. It’s a form of mapping.

Here’s the map of your plantation, we had 4 hectares. Have you seen how it looks? That’s what the EU is asking for.

Here is the cartography of your plantation. We recorded 4 hectares. Do you see how it is represented? Right, That is what the EU is asking for.

What the European Union is asking for: To be able to trace the origin of the cacao it imports.

Europe is the world’s leading consumer of chocolate. It imports 60% of its cacao from Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading supplier, with a million producers.

It’s this love of chocolate that’s driving deforestation in producing countries. More than 2 million hectares of forest have disappeared in Côte d’Ivoire over the last 20 years.

So in 2023, the European Union adopted a new law against deforestation, known as the EUDR, which makes it illegal to import cacao grown from deforested or degraded land.

Since then, the cacao industry in Côte d’Ivoire has been in a state of turmoil. That includes the Cayat cooperative, which produces 10,000 metric tons of sustainable cacao a year, and puts technology at the heart of its fight against deforestation.

Aboudramane’s suspicious look at the cacao …

With his mobile app … is the last check before export.

We have 197 kg … three bags. And we have to scan the barcodes associated with each purchase.

The 4 metric tons of cacao received this morning are certified sustainable.

The cacao can now be exported, heading for Europe!

The EU regulation was due to come into force in December 2024. But its implementation has been postponed by a year, due to concerns about getting producers to comply in time.

The demands of the EUDR will put a strain on producers, even those in this cooperative, one of the first to sell fair trade and traceable cacao.

When we heard about these European standards, we were really worried because they cost a lot of money.

… It’s extremely complicated for the producer. As far as traceability is concerned, you need a hundred dollars  per metric ton to be able to do it.

It’s extremely expensive.

What the director observes in her calculations, the 3,000 producers of this cooperative confirm on the ground.

We asked them what they wanted to say to the decision-makers at the European Union:

Since the EU is asking us to stop exploiting the forests, our aim is for the EU to help us diversify our crops, so that we can be self-sufficient in food, because if we have enough to eat, I don’t see the point of going into the forests and then destroying them when we have something to eat on the side.

What producers would like is support in overcoming the economic cost of this transition, at a time when15% of Côte d’Ivoire’s cacao is still produced in protected areas.

In a country where 90% of the forest cover has disappeared, growing cacao on unprotected land seems difficult … A vicious circle that the dream of “zero deforestation” chocolate is trying to break.