FarmForce application for cocoa farmers offers real-time, barcode-based, bag level traceability
Cameroon, Brazil
Led by Cargill
Cargill with eTrade Alliance support is adapting their FarmForce application that has been successfully deployed in Cote d’Ivoire. The ‘Cocoa Solution’ version of the FarmForce application offers real-time, barcode-based, bag level traceability that allows Cargill to trace the origin of each bag throughout the value chain, while also promoting fair sourcing relationships with farmers and cooperatives and ensuring they receive premiums for cocoa that has been UTZ or Rainforest Alliance certified.
Cocoa Solution features barcode stickers linked to each farmer/field which can be distributed to farmers via extension agents and applied to bags of cocoa. The barcodes can be traced and scanned by Android phones used by extension agents at buying stations and on tablets used in the Cargill warehouses where bags are aggregated. The barcodes are also linked to GPS mapping of each farm’s location.
Cameroon, Brazil
Mobile application
2020/2021
Help enable real time traceability and promote fair sourcing relationships throughout cocoa supply chain
Cocoa farmers
Cargill
Country
Target Audience
Objective
Dates
Program Type
Partners
Impact
In 2020 in Cameroon, Cargill set up FarmForce servers, and distributed training to 14 cooperatives, 29 cocoa exporter staff from Cameroon-stationed company Telcar, and 3 buying stations involved in the project. Cargill succeeded in carrying out the first official purchases on the platform, totaling 348kg of cocoa beans purchased at 950 FCFA per kilogram.
In Brazil, Cargill completed development of the Phase 1 Coop Management (CMS) application updates including surveying farmers and coops for initial setup of the app, gathering map data, and building, testing, and reviewing FarmForce functionalities for the Brazilian market.
In progress
In Cameroon, Cargill will continue rolling out its FarmForce mobile application to provide first-mile traceability solutions to an additional 4,800 farmers, 10 cooperatives, and 3 buying stations, and integrate 20,000 farmers into Cargill’s Cooperative Management System (CMS) to enable digital registration of sourcing operations of involved suppliers.
In Brazil, Cargill will continue to add functionalities to the FarmForce app to better facilitate input of data related to production activities, better yield forecasts, better mapping functionality, and mainly improvements in the user experience in order to make the app more accessible to farmers. Cargill will continue rolling out the FarmForce mobile application in Brazil to 150 additional smallholder farmers and 2 farmer cooperatives.