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Sustainable Sourcing Landscapes

The project seeks to improve the livelihood and wellbeing of rural families in the selected areas by creating sustainable sourcing landscapes with deforestation-free and climate-friendly supply chains for present and future generations.
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Antioquia, Colombia
6.2476598
-75.565816
Colombia
Project duration
2023 - 2025
Co-financed by

State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO through the SWISSCO Landscape Programme

Colombia is highly affected by climate change, as it is increasingly vulnerable to flooding, landslides and water shortages, which impact agriculture, human health, economic activities, and critical infrastructure. In February 2020, the governor of Antioquia declared a state of climate emergency, with the emission of greenhouse gases and deforestation as the most urgent concerns. The Landscape Approach is becoming a driving paradigm in the international agriculture and environmental development sector. It is promoted by academics and practitioners alike to enhance climate change adaptive capacity and mitigation potential of agriculture in the tropic.

The project

The Sustainable Landscapes project has the goal of collectively engaging local stakeholders in the development of sustainable sourcing landscapes in selected jurisdictions. The approach will have two layers:

  1. Jurisdictional Landscape Approach with municipal sustainable landscape pilots
    The first layer will focus on cocoa producing areas of Antioquia and involve local authorities and department level stakeholders. Urabá, Magdalena and Bajo Cauca are areas of high conservation value (HCV) and high carbon stocks (HCS). The objective is to develop a common agenda for sustainable landscape development, including the adoption of good measurement practices by local organisations. This will lead to the implementation of projects by local stakeholders from different sectors to improve sustainability within the landscapes, including initiatives to position the sustainable landscapes within national and international markets.
  2. Scaling cocoa smallholder integration in sustainable sourcing landscape
    The second layer involves work with cocoa producers to scale up our ongoing efforts to improve climate-smart and regenerative agriculture practices in combination with sustainable inputs and processing practices within the landscapes. This will lead to increased sustainability, productivity, and quality of cocoa, along with increased supply of cocoa in accordance with sustainability standards and from agroforestry systems. The adoption of income diversification measures on and off farms, and the increased involvement in decision making inside the landscapes will increase the income of producer households and their resilience to climate change and market shocks.

Project Goals

The project aims to contribute to increase farmer’s income (Sustainable Development Goal SDG 1), decrease deforestation (SDG 3 and SDG 15), and strengthen traceability and transparency along the cocoa value chain (SDG 2). This shall be reached by:

  • Implementation of common sustainable landscape agenda/action plan, with increased involvement of women in decision making and the active participation of local stakeholders. It will be done through aligned interventions and a participatory monitoring to track progress and continuously improve performance and results at farm and landscape level.
  • Adoption of income diversification, productivity and quality-enhancing measures by farming households, with increased economic opportunities for women and youth in the landscape, valorisation and consolidation of supply from sustainable sourcing landscapes
  • Implementation of climate-smart and regenerative agriculture practices and a transition to agroforestry systems, creating more value for local organisations and smallholders, increased supply of deforestation-free cocoa while promoting climate mitigation, adaption and protection of biodiversity

Partners

  • SWISSCO
  • Colcocoa
  • Pakka

Expected Results

The project will improve sustainability in three Colombian cocoa sourcing landscapes by increasing resilience to climate change of at least 11,533 hectares from 1,462 cocoa-producing households, sequestering or reducing 121,104 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) accumulated over 3 years, and increasing their income, exceeding the rural poverty line through three mechanisms: 

  1. Price premium by adopting Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Processing Practices to improve productivity and quality while fulfilling sustainability standards;
  2. Agroforestry systems that will result in climate change adaptation and biodiversity protection while monetising CO2 sequestration in the voluntary carbon market, and
  3. Income diversification with other crops and off-farm activities with particular focus on opportunities for women and youth. Women will increase their self-esteem by improving their financial independence and participating in decision-making leadership roles.

In addition, the project will build the capacity of local public and private advisory services and input providers to deliver innovatively, state-of-the-art science-based and climate-smart/regenerative recommendations, practices, and technologies.

Brochure: Landscapes + Sustainable Antioquia
12 MB

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