Fuji Oil Holdings, along with subsidiary Blommer Chocolate Co., have launched two global initiatives to address the most significant issues the cocoa industry faces.

Fairtrade International’s West Africa Programme is training more cocoa farmers, generating greater understanding of Fairtrade Standards and selling more Fairtrade cocoa after intensive training, according to a new report the organization released last week.

Participating companies have mapped more than one million farms in their direct supply chain and distributed more than 4 million trees to farmers to establish agroforestry systems.

Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate’s 2018-2019 Sustainability Progress Report highlights the company’s efforts to improve transparency and the lives of cocoa farmers in Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia.

Barry Callebaut has announced that in fiscal year 2018/19 it sourced 51 percent of its ingredients sustainably, up from 44 percent the previous year.

A consortium of chocolate manufacturers, certification groups and non-governmental organizations have joined forces to call on the European Union to strengthen its human rights and environmental requirements for companies participating in the global cocoa supply chain.

Olam Cocoa has launched the Cocoa Compass program, designed to support the creation of an environmentally positive, professionalized and quality focused cocoa supply chain.

Cocoa organizations in Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire now say sustainability programs carried out by chocolate makers and confectionery companies can work in harmony with the new per-tonne living income differential the countries established in July.

The United Nations Development Programme and the FairChain Foundation have created The Other Bar, a chocolate bar that challenges consumers to take direct action against poverty.