With the right data, could remote cocoa farmers in Colombia access international markets and pioneer a new way to protect the country’s rainforests?

An interview with Pedro Castro, a Frontier Tech Pioneer

Coca, the leaf needed to make the illegal drug cocaine, can be grown easily in most regions of Colombia. Crops like corn, soybeans and most kinds of coffee need regular sunlight, but coca is capable of thriving in the shade - a useful factor in a country where more than half of the ground is covered in forest.

Despite the stories we read about cocaine production leading to mass deforestation, there was once a time where some of the trees deep in the Amazon rainforest were actually being guarded by armed drug-trafficking groups. Under the canopies of ancient trees illegal crops could be grown, invisible to the blinking eyes of satellites and aircraft.

The ease and return offered by the coca crop means that the number of farmers growing it keeps climbing, and they quickly become trapped in a system seeped in conflict. 

“Once you’re in, it’s hard to get out,” Pedro Castro tells me. He’s the Climate, Environment and Agriculture Adviser at the British Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, and he has worked with Colombian farmers for the past 11 years.

His great, great Grandfather was a coffee farmer and a very small portion of the land he owned still belongs to him and his mother. They sometimes grow coffee, drying and roasting the beans; not for money but to honour the passion and “ancestral knowledge” that’s been passed down through the generations. It’s not an easy process, but Pedro assures me that 80-90% of Colombians you ask will know how to do it. “It’s in our blood,” he tells me with pride.

This civil servant’s affinity with the farming community is deep-rooted, and he knows that his visits to rural areas are met not only with expectations for support, but also with enthusiasm and energy: “They love to try new products and once they start getting to know the technology, they become champions of it.”

There’s a different crop which could transform the lives of thousands of families trapped in the coca system, and it too can grow peacefully under the shade of endangered rainforests: cocoa

Making the switch from farming coca to other crops or rearing cattle is a difficult one because it often doesn’t culminate in anywhere near the same financial return. But cocoa crops suit the same humidity, soil and environment which is home to so many coca plants.

“We call it the peace crop,” Pedro tells me. Cocoa plants even thrive in the shade of Colombia’s vast forests, and can effectively generate huge carbon sinks. While dramatic rises in cattle farming has led to millions of hectares of deforestation, growing cocoa provides a form of agroforestry, where crops can exist beneath trees in a symbiotic ecosystem.

As we talk, Pedro is clutching a morning mug of hot chocolate, and he tells me about the Colombian breakfast drink chocolate santafereño: hot chocolate with melted cheese, which is consumed across the country. His eyes light up and his voice is excited, but it’s not due to the sweet, rich flavour swirling in his mug, but the potential he sees to transform the lives of thousands of families.

“It's really beautiful to see families coming together, thinking about transforming cocoa to chocolate. Forming associations of farmers. It's a beautiful process.”

The cocoa crop could give an estimated 52,000 rural families a route out of the conflict, loss and difficulties related to the coca industry, and create more than 100,000 jobs in 400 regions of the country. And while Colombia is better known for its coffee than for its cocoa, the global market is starting to recognize the thousands of diverse flavours held across the country. Buyers are interested.

There’s one obstacle in the way: international buyers are legally bound to only import from cocoa farmers whose crops are traceable and pose no threat of deforestation. Compliance can be proven with data connected to well-known certificates like Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, but they’re expensive, and unaffordable to many of Colombia’s pioneering cocoa farmers who could be protecting the rainforest through the agroforestry process Pedro has explained.

“A farmer in the Amazon forest is quite isolated. They would have to work for three or four years just to pay for the label. But if you don't have the label, you can’t export.”

Showcasing the right data could provide these pioneering farmers an affordable alternative

Pedro wants to create a process that combines data collected from the ground with geospatial data captured from above, and use it to provide the same level of traceability offered by well-known certificates.

The geospatial data from satellites will provide due diligence around rainforest protection, and potentially measure the health of the crops themselves. Data captured on the ground by farmers using cell phones can demonstrate fair and ethical practices. With a focus on creating trust in the system, the team are exploring whether the process will incorporate blockchain technology.

Pedro wants to share more than just compliance data though. He wants to make these remote farmers visible to the international market. “We want them to tell stories of what they do and upload pictures of their farms.” Ultimately, he wants to share with buyers that these farmers are not only producing fair crops with diverse flavours, but that they are protecting Colombia’s rainforests as a result.

There is widespread hope that cocoa farming holds a growing economic, social and environmental opportunity for Colombia. The platform Pedro will be testing over the next 12 months could play an important role in ensuring that the farmers working deep in the rainforests aren’t excluded from this new chapter in the country’s story.

“Coming from a family of farmers, a family that's been in the rural sector for years, changes and transformations and ideas like these get me excited. It’s something that I'm doing not only for them but it's something that I'm doing for me, because they’re my people.”

If you’d like to dig in further…

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🎧 Listen to an episode of the Data Frontier on mapping humanity: using frontier data technologies and AI to provide hyper-local spatial data around the world (23 minute listen)
🌳 Explore how satellite imagery is monitoring the growth of trees in Uganda to enable farmers to sell carbon credits on the international market (short read)