The ‘knowing what to do with farm data’ cocoa sector challenge

At the recent Innovation Forum Future of Food conference, Nicko Debenham, vice president and head of sustainability at Barry Callebaut, and Taco Terheijden, director, cocoa sustainability at Cargill and talked about supply chain traceability and use of data with Toby Webb.

They discussed the importance of getting quality data about smallholder farmers without disrupting farm activities, and why it the process is frequently expensive and labour intensive. And then, ensuring that the data is used effectively is equally important and just as challenging.  The discussion includes the merits of data sharing to help alleviate farmer survey fatigue and to enhance sector transparency.