Integrating satellite and ground big data to improve cocoa production
Can earth observations from satellites coupled with ground big data provide insights for due diligence requirements in a sustainable cocoa production market?
LOCATION | Colombia
SECTOR | Agriculture
TECH | Satellite data, ground data
TIMELINE | September 2022 - Present
PIONEER | Alfonso Escolar
PARTNERS | Earth Big Data
The Challenge
Colombia has 12.8 million hectares suitable for production of cocoa crops. Growing and processing cocoa provides economic opportunities for 52,000 rural families. It involves small and medium producers and creates approximately 165,000 direct and indirect jobs in over 400 municipalities and 27 departments in Colombia. There are regions in Colombia where cocoa plantations are expanding beyond arable land, threatening forests and protected areas.
There are international buyers interested in premium cocoa beans who rely on international certification schemes to ensure traceability and compliance of suppliers. These certificates are expensive and exclude smallholder farmers. Two of Colombia’s main challenges are massive coca production and deforestation of the Amazon.
The Idea
The pilot seeks to improve production and commercialisation of cocoa as an alternative to coca and to reduce deforestation at the same time. It aims to do so through an IoT application that will integrate satellite value added data, such as forest dynamics and cocoa volume production, and ground truth data collected by mobile phones, such as soil characteristics. The application will utilise a cloud-based distributed processing environment and machine learning algorithms to generate reliable and insightful information not only for farmers, but for investors and buyers that struggle to identify cocoa suppliers that comply with market regulations. This pilot will target isolated deforestation hotspots in Colombia, in hopes of increasing visibility of marginalised communities that produce cocoa in a sustainable way but are currently isolated from international markets due to their geographical conditions and low/none internet connectivity.
Meet the Pioneers in their kick off story 👇🏽
Follow along as we share updates on our journey. Stay tuned!
Coca, the leaf needed to make the illegal drug cocaine, can be grown easily in most regions of Colombia. Crops like corn, soybeans and most kinds of coffee need regular sunlight, but coca is capable of thriving in the shade - but so is cocoa.