In January 2022, Nestlé launched a new plan to build on its longstanding efforts to tackle child labor risks in cocoa production. At its center is an innovative income accelerator program, which aims to improve the livelihoods of cocoa-farming families and incentivize enrollment of children in school, while advancing regenerative agriculture practices and gender equality. A cash incentive will be paid to the cocoa-farming households for certain activities to accelerate change. This new plan also includes initiatives to transform the global sourcing of cocoa to achieve full traceability and segregation of cocoa products.

It offers a novel approach to help farmers and their families steadily and sustainably build economic stability. It rewards cocoa-farming families not only for the quantity and quality of cocoa beans they produce but also for the benefits they provide to the environment and local communities.

Building on the learnings of an initial pilot in 2020 with 1,000 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, we will run a sizeable test program with 10,000 families in the country starting in 2022, before extending it to Ghana in 2024. We will then assess the results of that test phase and adapt where necessary, before aiming to reach all cocoa-farming families in Nestlé’s global cocoa supply chain by 2030.

Feedback and input from farmers and farmer cooperatives, as well as ongoing data collection and evaluation by third parties, will be used to inform, modify and improve the program as it scales up to more communities.

Read more about the income accelerator program here. The Nestlé Cocoa Plan: Progress Report 2020 can be found here and the Tackling Child Labor Report 2019 can be found here and the 2017 here.