Posts Tagged Chocolate Company
Gates Foundation aids African cocoa, cashew farmers
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Thursday 48 million dollars in grants for public-private projects designed to boost the incomes of poor small cocoa and cashew farmers in Africa.
The US foundation, created by the wealthy founder of software giant Microsoft, Bill Gates, and his wife, said it had joined two partnerships marshalling 90 millon dollars to help the small farmers lift themselves out of poverty and reduce hunger.
The projects focus on improved training and access to markets for hundreds of thousands of small cocoa and cashew farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, the Gates Foundation said in a statement.
Tags: African Cocoa, Benefits, Cacao, Chocolate, Chocolate Company, Cocoa, Cocoa Farm, Cocoa Farmers, Cocoa Farming, Cocoa Product, Cocoa Production, Coffee, Ivory Coast, World Cocoa, World Cocoa FoundationRelated posts
Cocoa Genome To Be Sequenced: May Benefit Millions Of Farmers, Help Sustain World’s Chocolate Supply
he United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Mars, Incorporated, and IBM intend to apply their scientific resources to sequence and analyze the entire cocoa genome. Sequencing the cocoa genome is a significant scientific step that may allow more directed breeding of cocoa plants and perhaps even enhance the quality of cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate.
The research results may enable farmers to plant better quality cocoa and, more importantly, help create healthier, stronger cocoa crops with higher yields, pest and disease resistance, and increased water and nutrient use efficiency. These crops may help protect an important social, economic and environmental driver in Africa, where 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is produced. Additionally, Mars will make its research results freely available through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA), which supports agricultural innovation for both humanitarian and small-scale commercial purposes.
Tags: Benefits, Chocolate, Chocolate Company, Chocolate Products, Cocoa, Cocoa Farm, Cocoa Farmers, Cocoa Tree, Cocoa Trees, HealthRelated posts