Rikolto (International)

Throughout the year, we can count on enthusiastic interns: sometimes, they surprise us with their social media magic, sometimes their study topic brings us new insights. Eva Van De Putte joined our Food Smart Cities team, and wraps up her internship with this blogpost, in which she unpacks the definition of food governance, inclusive markets and interconnectivity.

Rikolto joined forces with Colruyt Group, Entreprise Cooperative de Saint Paul (ECSP), Puratos, Access Agriculture, Agro Insight and Fairtrade Belgium to move towards a living income for cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast. One year after the start of the project, we take a look at the first results.

The agreement seeks to position and reinforce Peru's differentiation as an exporter of quality cocoa, with verified origin attributes and deforestation-free by 2025. Rikolto is joining 19 organisations from the cocoa value chain in the country to promote this important initiative, within the framework of the Coalition for Sustainable Production.

Fernando García went from producing in a monoculture model to developing a diversified farm cultivating cocoa, grains, fruit, and timber. The 67-year-old farmer learned about cocoa cultivation from scratch.

Are supermarkets helping us to eat sustainably? That question is the subject of a new comparative research by Questionmark Foundation, supported by Rikolto and Test Aankoop.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a concentration of 60% - the largest proportion - of potential young entrepreneurs in the world. However, young entrepreneurs are facing numerous constraints. What's more, they are being expected to come up with “Eat the World” ideas, when most of them became entrepreneurs out of a strong economic necessity.