Good cocoa starts with National Sustainable Curriculum (NSC)
Indonesia launched a multi-stakeholder based Cocoa National Sustainable Curriculum (NSC) production module in February to help double country’s cocoa production in Indonesia and improve farmer profitability in the next two years.
One set of training modules to be used by CSP members to provide training and assistance to cocoa farmers in Indonesia. Combined with assistance to any CSP member to meet the requirement of good agricultural and post-harvesting practices standard that are set up by Government of Indonesia. This alignment and support will help boost the Indonesian cocoa sector.
“We hope the national curriculum and training modules will help CSP members to enable cocoa farmers to achieve at least one-ton dry bean/ha and improve the quality in sustainable ways through good agricultural practices (GAP) and post-harvesting management training such as the use of responsible agro-input as well as the fermentation technique,” said Wahyu Wibowo, Executive Director of CSP during the launching ceremony in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Currently, Indonesia is the third largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana. Cocoa crop in Indonesia covers an area of approximately 1.2 million ha with an annual production of around 600,000 to 700,000 tons, involving around 1.4 million farmers.
The NSC aims to help CSP members to enhance the capacity of farmers, farmers organization and align and support private sectors’ agronomists and extension service government agencies. In support of that the NSC online document is publicly available.
IDH has been supporting the CSP from the start as well as NSC development by convening and bringing the Indonesian cocoa stakeholders to collaborate. Indonesian cocoa farmers will be able to increase their productivity and improve the quality of Indonesian cocoa in sustainable ways, thanks to the engagement between CSP members, IDH, Center for Agricultural Training (Puslatan), Centre of Agriculture Training and Human Resources Development (BPPSDMP), Ministry of Agriculture of Indonesia, and the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI).
“The launch of Cocoa NSC in Indonesia is in accordance to the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture regulation and policy. The training material is applicable as it shows the GAP and post-harvesting techniques and practices in the field which also provides training evaluation to measure farmers’ competency at the end of the training. I hope there will be more campaigns on how to apply NSC to larger target groups in the future,” said Cut Huzaimah from Aceh Cocoa Forum, one of the cocoa farmers’ organizations in Indonesia.