Can environmental recovery and sustainable cocoa production happen at the same time? Cargill is present on this journey.

Partnership with Belterra made this reality with almost one million cocoa seedlings and other species in the country.

“An example of how we deliver financial support and innovation for producers to invest even more in regenerative agriculture is our partnership with Belterra”. This is how Laerte Moraes, Food Solutions South America Leader, defined working with the company specializing in Agroforestry Systems (SAFs in Portuguese).

The action aims stimulating the agroforestry system development, which brings the benefit of improving soil health and conserving local biodiversity. By Embrapa's definition, SAFs optimize land use, reconciling environmental preservation with food production, conserving the soil and reducing the pressure for land use for agricultural production. They can be used to restore forests and recover degraded areas.

But what are we going to do in this partnership? “We will, along with Belterra, planting one thousand hectares in the North region of Mato Grosso state, Brazil, in association with other types of local crops besides cocoa”, states Laerte.

This is because Cargill is committed to restoring 100 thousand hectares of degraded areas in Brazil over the next five years. Part of the target is in the process of being met with this initiative which, at the same time as promoting the development of cocoa farming, is restoring part of the Amazon biome in Brazil's Midwest region.

Cocoa was the chosen crop in the partnership with Belterra because it can be planted in regions where the soil was destined for one or two types of crops in the last harvests. In addition, cocoa has a high carbon storage capacity and, therefore, can also be an important strategy for offsetting GHG (Greenhouse Gases) emissions.

“The sum of sustainable practices, traceability and commercial relevance make cocoa the flagship of many agroforestry systems, as it is responsible for maintaining moisture in the forest soil and fertilizing it, in addition to protecting it and mitigating erosion risks”, says Raphael Hamawaki, Coordinator of Sustainability Projects at CASC SA.

As a result, the cocoa plantation economically stabilizes the SAFs, producing more resilient systems, as it has a structured market and “helps Brazil facing the challenges in the internal supply of cocoa, since it is still necessary to import almonds to supply our market”, concludes Sandra Munoz, Geomarketing Leader at Cargill for Brazil and Latin America.

The expectation is supplying the national market, exportation, refining the sustainable production of almonds, promoting restoration in degraded areas, in addition to stimulating the consumption of derivatives and generating income for the producer.

But Cargill is not the only one constantly participating in the process. Planting sites on farms where Belterra operates rely on a series of actions by the company.

“We structure agroforestry systems so they can be adaptable to market demands and aligned with the producers’ interests. Production sales capacity is a critical factor for the success of expanding regenerative systems, so we became involved in all stages: research, planting, and development of chains”, explains Valmir Ortega, Geographer, Founder of Belterra and Specialist in Agroforestry.

The operation is currently carried out with funding from Cargill and Cargill Bank. In addition to the restoration of the thousand hectares of the Amazon biome, the partnership also includes the cocoa produced purchase, a barter operation, which means, the exchange of inputs by production.

“We are participating as a financier, with money and also with the inputs supply such as agrochemicals and fertilizers for the implementation. In addition, we buy all this cocoa to generate liquidity in the industry. This generates income for the producer in the short, medium and long term”, explains Laerte.