Our Approach

Protecting Forests and Reducing Emissions

Cargill addresses climate impacts across the entire cocoa value chain. Deforestation from cocoa farming represents about two-thirds of the sector’s carbon footprint, so we’re prioritizing forest protection and more sustainable farming practices while continuing to find opportunities and innovations in our operations to reduce our footprint.

We work with strategic partners and national ministries to support emissions reduction, forest restoration, and renewable energy use across cocoa processing operations. 

We’re also supporting innovation — such as producing biochar that reuses cocoa shells — to create a more sustainable cocoa future from bean to bar.

Learn more about how we’re reducing emissions

Growing Cocoa While Restoring Nature

Healthy forests, clean water, and productive soils are essential for resilient cocoa communities. We work with governments, farmers, and NGOs to address deforestation and restore ecosystems across our origination areas.

Our approach includes:

• Polygon mapping and satellite monitoring to track land use and prevent forest loss.
• Agroforestry programs that integrate shade, fruit, and timber trees — improving biodiversity, soil health, and farm income.
• Water access projects with Global Water Challenge, which have provided safe drinking water to 100,000+ people in cocoa-growing communities.

So far, we’ve distributed over 1 million trees for on-farm planting and supported over 14,000 farmers in applying agroforestry systems across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

Explore our conservation work

Empowering Farmers and Communities

At the heart of our work are the people who grow cocoa. We help farmers increase their productivity and incomes through a holistic Farm Services Model that combines agronomic training, individualized coaching, and access to quality inputs and finance.

Alongside external factors such as price fluctuations, crop failures, or political instability that disrupt farming or market access, many farmers struggle with aging, not optimally productive trees and lack of diversification. They may also have limited access to the infrastructure, training, and finance they need to run their farms as successful businesses. Through the Cargill Cocoa Promise, we empower farmers to become agriculture entrepreneurs who can maximize their farm’s profitability and manage their farms as businesses.

In 2025:

• 94,000+ farmers received one-on-one coaching
• 36,000+ farmers implemented good agricultural practices
• 10,000+ households in Côte d’Ivoire joined the Nestlé Income Accelerator Program, linking productivity gains to living income outcomes

Women are the social and economic foundation of many cocoa-growing communities. They are farmers, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and they also often take primary responsibility for children’s education and family nutrition. Empowering women not only improves their livelihoods and that of their families, but it can also have a significant positive impact on communities at large. 

We also partner with NGOs to promote gender equity and children’s rights:

• Our programs with CARE and LadyAgri support thousands of women entrepreneurs through savings groups, small business creation, and market linkages
• Save the Children and the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) support our child labor monitoring and remediation systems (CLMRS) across farmers in our Promise supply chain

Meet the people and organizations behind cocoa sustainability