SAT4Farming is an initiative aimed at providing thousands of small scale cocoa producers with the information and services necessary for the improvement of productivity and sustainability.
Using satellite imagery and other digital technology to create Farm Development Plans for individual farmers, SAT4Farming is designed to run over a seven year period.
Majority of the world’s cocoa is produced by smallholder farmers who make the country the 2nd largest cocoa producer worldwide. However, while cocoa farmers face declining yields and threats from pest and disease – leading to persistent poverty, they rarely ever get the training and advice needed to turn the situation around.
Already, Touton is deploying theSAT4Farming FDP among its network of farmers and suppliers for Mars Inc, a major chocolate maker, whose suppliers across a number of countries are also employing similar approaches in support of a more sustainable cocoa sector by improving on the livelihoods of shareholders while protecting the environment.
Ghana’s COCOBOD is in full support of the program’s implementation, locally.
The program, which has plans to launch a social enterprise which widely makes available SAT4Farming services receives initial funding from the Netherlands Space Office’s Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW)
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