Introducing cocoa farming to Madagascar’s vanilla production region

IDH supporting Barry Callebaut and Prova's joint project empowering vanilla farmers.

Barry Callebaut and Prova are launching a joint project empowering vanilla farmers in Madagascar, with IDH supporting the project with expertise and co-funding. The aim is to diversify and stabilize revenues of vanilla farmers through the introduction of cocoa farming and the improvement of the productivity of vanilla farming. For IDH, the project is a unique collaboration that will promote farm income diversification and sustainable farming.

The support to this project is part of IDH’s support to the Sustainable Vanilla Initiative (SVI), a collaboration of international vanilla processing industry and food manufacturers to substantially increase sustainable vanilla production and supply, while improving vanilla beans quality and improve farmers livelihoods. With local stakeholders in Madagascar, SVI also envisages to contribute to the sector professionalization and transparency, and overall a more stable local and global market of vanilla.

The full press release can be found here.