Nicaragua

As of 2013, we started working with cocoa cooperatives and vegetable farmer cooperatives. Our coffee programme only started to take shape in 2017. This was also when we started adopting, for the first time in our organisation’s history, an integrated landscape approach, in the area around Lake Apanás. Currently, we run our Cocoa & coffee programme, and our Good Food for Cities programme in Managua, Jinotega, and Matagalpa.

Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee programme highlights for 2025

We concluded the Unlocking Youth Power project with a final evaluation. At the La Campesina cooperative, 70% of the employees are younger than 35 years old, and youth membership grew fivefold, from 25 in 2018 to 125 in 2025. Productivity of youth-led cocoa farms is now up to 43% higher than the average productivity (650 kg/ha instead of the regional average of 455 kg/ha). This also had an impact on the amount of cocoa available for marketing at cooperative level: up by 18% compared to 2021. Through a focus on making agroforestry systems more dynamic, producers are now diversifying their income with fruit and timber. Between 2023 and 2025, the share of producers earning more than $7,700 per year from diversified systems more than tripled, from 19% to 67%.

Good Food for Cities programme highlights for 2025

In Jinotega, the Union of Northern Horticultural Cooperatives (UCHON) continued promoting bio‑inputs as an alternative for managing vegetable, coffee, and staple grain crops. Trials showed a 70% reduction in coffee nursery production costs and a 49% reduction in jalapeño pepper production costs, thus helping to demonstrate that these practices can also make economic sense for farmers. Together with the recycling company TABLECO, UCHON also collected more than 100,000 units of agricultural input packaging.

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