Join us to discuss how cocoa scientists can work together better to address the big issues facing sustainable cocoa production
The INCOCOA groups are organising a one-day workshop immediately after the International Symposium on Cocoa Research (ISCR) in Montpellier, France. We are planning a combination of panel and open discussion sessions focussing on what is needed to improve collaboration and ensure that our research has the impact that it should to improve the sustainability of the cocoa sector. Key questions that we will be addressing include:
Has the implementation of research findings been as effective in cocoa as it has been in other tropical perennial crops, and if not, why not and what can we learn?
- How can we ensure that research leads to solutions that are implementable, and implemented at scale, by farmers?
- What contributes to the knowledge transfer gap? What is the impact of poverty/poor education on adoption of new practices to improve sustainability
What are the new research challenges/gaps in our current programmes and are there any conflicts in approaches/policies?
- Deforestation vs intensification
- What research is needed now to improve resilience to climate change?
- What are the prospects for the use of new technologies in improving pest control, planting materials and cropping systems, and ensuring the cocoa produced meets the quality expectations of the consumers?
How can the cocoa research community ensure they optimise progress through the use of collaboration, international and inter-disciplinary approaches?
- What are the challenges to securing funding and implementing multi-partner projects?
- Are there tensions between national and international policies?
- How to attract/keep young scientists in cocoa science?