Today the national campaign "With healthy pods, everyone wins" to fight Monilia is launched

• The National Cocoa Council, an organization created for the development and competitiveness of the cocoa-chocolate chain, launches, within the framework of the "Mission Monilia" strategy, a national campaign that seeks to sensitize especially producers on the importance of fighting the Monilia disease that damages cocoa to improve their income.

• Monilia is a fungal disease with a high incidence in climatic conditions with high humidity and excessive shade. It can cause losses of up to 80 % of the crops if controlled incorrectly.

• The campaign complements the efforts carried out at the national level aimed at renewing crops, the main factor for the control of Monilia, since this disease spreads more easily in aged and deteriorated lots. The renewal of cocoa farms continues with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, FEDECACAO, governorates, mayors' offices, and international cooperation.

 

Bucaramanga, Santander. April 19, 2023. Within the framework of Cocoa Farmer's Day, the current National Cocoa Council, an organization comprised of various actors in the cocoa-chocolate chain in the country, including national governmental entities, private companies, the association, producers, and exporters, among others, officially launches the campaign called "With healthy pods, everyone wins." This nationwide strategy seeks, hand in hand with the country's cocoa producers, to improve and implement good management practices in crops, to reduce the incidence of this disease in their productions, and with it, to improve their income.

The overall objective is that, by 2024, Colombia will manage to increase its cocoa production by 20 %, which is partly due to the correct implementation of the technical recommendations to fight Monilia. In 2022, Colombia achieved a consolidated figure of 62,158 tons; therefore, in 2024, the goal is around 74,500 tons.

Improvement practices will begin to be implemented to execute the campaign in demonstration farms located in Santander, Urabá Antioqueño, Huila, Tolima, Arauca, and Nariño, with agricultural extensionists from the National Federation of Cocoa Producers (FEDECACAO), Compañía Nacional de Chocolates, Casa Luker, and the C4D initiative, Cacao for Peace financed by USAID, and with the support of Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (AGROSAVIA). In these, the producer will apply the knowledge obtained from the research concerning the management of the disease and will be made aware of the importance of controlling it, which directly benefits the income of farmers and their families.

Concerning the initiative, Eduard Baquero López, executive president of the National Federation of Cocoa Producers (FEDECACAO), mentioned, "Today, the country has the highest quality cocoa materials, 14 of them developed by FEDECACAO, which, among other qualities, are more tolerant to Monilia, especially Fedecacao El Carmen 2 - FEC2, highly tolerant to this disease. As an association that watches over the interests of cocoa farmers in the country, we see positively that all the actors in the cocoa-chocolate chain join the efforts that FEDECACAO, as well as other organizations, have been doing for decades to fight Monilia. It will add all the experiences accumulated in favor of the well-being of cocoa farmers."

Darwin Hernando Martínez Botello, Innovation Manager of the Cocoa Network of AGROSAVIA, said, "Mission Monilia is the first integrating strategy that seeks to join the efforts of all institutions to improve the quality of life of cocoa producers in Colombia and seeks the articulation of technical and communication strategies to integrate conscious management of the disease in all cocoa-producing territories in Colombia. Its implementation will open the door to articulating a single strategy for the integrated management of the disease in Colombia. This initiative will favor the reduction of losses and the economic sustainability of cocoa-producing families in Colombia."

"This is the first step to achieving economic sustainability in cocoa cultivation in Colombia and for farmers to have better income is controlling Monilia," expressed Juan Fernando Valenzuela Arango, Director of Purchase and Agricultural Development of Compañía Nacional de Chocolates. Francisco Gómez, Vice President of Strategic Purchasing of Chocolate Luker, articulated the same argument. "Monilia is the main cause of economic losses in cocoa cultivation in Colombia. Fighting it benefits us all."

Lorena Mejía, Director of El Efecto Cacao, mentioned, "The losses generated by poor Monilia management are very high and directly affect producers' income. Mitigation is everyone's responsibility since we could all be affected on a greater or lesser scale from the base of the chain."

 

Execution times

After the selection of the demonstration farms, it is expected that from June 2023, the work sessions with producers will begin. Between that month and October, visits will be carried out with other producers, who will learn about the results of the practices carried out. Likewise, while the work in the Field Schools is done, producers will gradually implement these practices in their crops, for which it is expected to see the first results by the end of 2024.

 

Dissemination campaign

In addition to the awareness and appropriation components of the problem and the implementation of management practices in the crop, this strategy is complemented by a massive inter-institutional dissemination campaign, which strengthens the message and seeks to generate habits that fight Monilia as an internalized practice by the cocoa producer.

A five-year long-range campaign has been planned to generate this habit and a memory over time, which will be held jointly by the representatives of the National Cocoa Council.

The communication pieces will be comprised of flyers, prints, radio spots, and video capsules through social networks, podcasts, and WhatsApp, among others.

 

Monilia Tuesday

One of the messages sought to be positioned with cocoa farmers in the country is the "Monilia Tuesday" concept, which invites producers to emphasize practices to fight monilia that day. These include tasks such as cutting and collecting damaged fruits or with signs of infection, pruning, shading improvement, and other activities that agricultural extensionists will recommend during their technical visits. This strategy will also have a special deployment on Tuesdays in the dissemination campaign.

With this initiative, the actors of the country's chocolate chain continue to join efforts to develop the cocoa subsector, adding the knowledge of the entire sector towards improving the conditions of producers and the national cocoa growth in terms of productivity and quality.