Chocolate represents many things to many people: An offering of love. A moment of pleasure. A source of comfort. To the families in Ecuador where Endangered Species Chocolate sources its cacao, chocolate represents an opportunity for sustainable development.
To earn a living, these families are farmers of cacao trees – chocolate’s sweet fruit. The San Carlos co-op, a 1,200 member strong farm alliance, seeks to overcome adversity and build a sustainable livelihood for their families while honoring and protecting Ecuador’s lush, natural environment.
Together we can make a huge difference in the lives of farmers who want to work hard to make their lives better. By nurturing vital paths of support, these farmers can dig deep to create sustainable change:
- Economy & Opportunity
- Women & Families
- Environment
Project Ecuador offers an opportunity to do something good, loving and respectful for the San Carlos co-op farmers – men and women who have the stamina and drive to achieve goals for themselves, their families and their community.
Sustainability In Action: Project Ecuador
Ecuadorian cacao farmers of San Carlos co-op want to build sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their families. Project Ecuador assists the co-op in planting naturally disease resistant, high yield cacao trees. By 2015, the co-op and its 1,200 member farms will be self-sustaining and profitable. Project Ecuador:
- Economy & Opportunity
- Creates leadership positions within the co-op, offering farmers the chance to advance and support their families in stronger, more sustainable ways.
- Enables co-op member farmers to purchase and plant 600,000 high yield, naturally disease resistant cacao trees.
- Allows an increase of cacao production from 100 metric tons per year to 800 metric tons per year.
- Increases 1,200 farmers’ incomes – bringing farming wages on par or greater than the national income average ($2,400/year).
- Women & Families
- Creates leadership positions within the co-op, offering women the chance to advance and support their families in stronger, more sustainable ways.
- Ensures women equal access to farming knowledge, trees and tools within the co-op community.
- Provides means for co-op farmers to triple annual crop and income over the next four years, benefitting the health and happiness of farming families.
- Addresses HIV/AIDS education and prevention in a region with one of the highest HIV rates in Ecuador.
- Supports community first aid boxes, maintained by the co-op leadership.
- Environment
- Enables co-op member farmers to plant naturally disease resistant cacao trees, eliminating the need for toxic pesticide use.
- Promotes shade-grown cacao which protects forests, providing a healthy habitat for countless plant and animal species.
- Creates an alternative to crops that involve clear cutting the forests. Shade-grown cacao trees support vast forests that serve as the world’s clean air supply.
- Supports on-going training and education of environmental farming techniques.