Indonesia's cocoa farmers work with businesses to fight the bitter
impact of climate change
[March 17, 2025] By
VICTORIA MILKO and DITA ALANGKARA
TANJUNG REJO, Indonesia (AP) — The loud whirr of a chainsaw sounds
through the forest as a small group of farmers gathers around a tree
filled with red seed pods. With one slow stroke, a severed knobby branch
hits the ground.
“Now it will help the tree grow new fruit,” farmer Tari Santoso says
with a smile.
Thousands of cocoa farmers across Indonesia like Santoso are working
with businesses and other organizations to protect their crops from the
bitter impacts of climate change and underinvestment that have pushed
cocoa prices to record levels.
Cocoa trees are high maintenance: Grown only near the equator, they
require a precise combination of steady temperatures, humidity and
sunlight. It takes five years for a tree to start producing the seeds
that are processed into cocoa used to make chocolate and other
delectable foods.
Climate change raises the risks for farmers: Hotter weather hurts yields
and longer rainy seasons trigger the spread of fungus and deadly pests.
Increasingly unpredictable weather patterns have made it harder for
farmers to deal with those challenges.
So farmers are switching to other crops, further reducing cocoa supplies
and pushing prices higher: In 2024, prices nearly tripled, reaching
about US$12,000 per ton, driving up chocolate costs and leading some
chocolate makers to try growing cocoa in laboratories.
Indonesia is the third-largest producer of cocoa in the world, behind
Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana, according to the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization, farmers are joining with businesses and
nongovernmental organizations to develop better growing practices and
improve their livelihoods.

Sitting in the shade of his forest farm in south Sumatra, 3 miles (5
kilometers) from a national park where Sumatran tigers and rhinos roam,
farmer Santoso is working with Indonesian chocolate maker Krakakoa.
After he began working with the company in 2016, Santoso starting using
practices that helped his cocoa trees flourish, regularly pruning and
grafting new branches onto older trees to promote growth and prevent the
spread of disease. He is using organic fertilizer and has adopted
agroforestry techniques, integrating other crops and trees such as
bananas, dragon fruit, coffee and pepper, into his farm to foster a
healthier ecosystem and invest in other income sources.
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A farmer holds an opened cocoa pod at a plantation in Tanjung Rejo,
Lampung province, Indonesia, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Dita
Alangkara)
 “It wasn't very successful before we
met Krakakoa,” Santoso said. “But then, we received training ...
things are much better.”
Krakakoa has trained more than 1,000 cocoa farmers in Indonesia
according to its founder and CEO, Sabrina Mustopo. The company also
provides financial support.
Santoso and other farmers in Sumatra said the partnership helped
them to form a cooperative provides low-interest loans to farmers,
with interest paid back into the cooperative rather than to banks
outside of the community.
Cocoa farmers who need bigger loans from government-owned banks also
benefit from partnering with businesses, as the guaranteed buyer
agreements can provide collateral needed to get loans approved, said
Armin Hari, a communications manager at the Cocoa Sustainability
Partnership, a forum for public-private collaboration for cocoa
development in Indonesia.
Dozens of other businesses, the government and nongovernmental
organizations and cooperatives are also working with cocoa farmers
to better cope with climate change, benefiting thousands, Hari said.
He pointed to a collaboration between Indonesia's National Research
and Innovation Agency and the local division of international
chocolate maker Mars, which have released a new variant of cocoa
that produces more pods per tree.
Challenges still remain, said Rajendra Aryal, the FAO's country
director for Indonesia. Fewer people see cocoa farming as a
lucrative business and instead are planting other crops such as palm
oil. And many small-scale farmers still cannot get loans, he said.
But Aryal said he hopes that continued collaboration between farmers
and others will help.
“If we can look at the major issues these (farmers) are facing ... I
think this sector could be, again, very attractive to the farmers,”
he said. “Despite the challenges in Indonesia, I see that there are
opportunities."
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