Nestlé and ofi launch global agroforestry partnership in largest collaboration yet

• Approximately 25,000 farmers across Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria will be trained and supported to convert their farms to agroforestry and implement crop residue management
• The aim is to plant over 2.8 million trees and cultivate more than 72,000 hectares of agroforestry as part of a transition to regenerative agriculture.
• It’s estimated to cut more than 1.5 million tons of CO₂ over the next 30 years from these activities

Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company and ofi (olam food ingredients), a global leader in naturally good food and beverage ingredients and solutions, are launching their largest-ever joint cocoa agroforestry partnership to reduce carbon emissions and combat deforestation.

As the cocoa industry faces the dual challenges of rising demand and increased environmental pressures, Nestlé and ofi are stepping up their efforts to create a more sustainable future for cocoa production.

Spanning Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, and Brazil, approximately 25,000 farmers will be supported in transitioning to climate-smart farming, over a 5-year period in each country by implementing agroforestry and crop residue management^[1]. These activities will be monitored until 2055, with ofi’s carbon footprinting experts estimating they can cut carbon emissions by 1.5 million tons of CO₂ over the next 30 years.  

The project aims to cultivate more than 72,000 hectares of agroforestry, as part of a transition to regenerative agriculture. This includes planting an estimated 2.8 million trees, which will be 3^rd party verified, from the nursery to the farm. The baselines for these activities have been established using ofi’s AI-powered Carbon Stock Monitoring tool and will be used continuously to track the geolocation of the trees and that they are growing to comply with the objectives set out by Nestlé and ofi.

The global partnership builds on 15 years of Nestlé and ofi collaborating on sustainable cocoa and is their largest joint agroforestry initiative to date. It is designed to support Nestlé’s Cocoa Plan and 2050 Net Zero targets while also contributing towards ofi’s Cocoa Compass sustainability ambition, which introduced new targets for regenerative agriculture.  These feed into ofi’s overarching sustainability strategy, Choices for Change, with a vision of being the preferred partner for positive change.