This App Follows Cacao Trees from Seed to Sale

The cacao tree could be the way forward for Colombia, and tech companies are developing made-to-measure apps to help farmers better capitalize on the full cacao’s potential.

“Now we are digitizing cacao, building a data analytics platform that creates knowledge for free for growers,” Roelof Kramer, CEO of Agricompas, an agricultural decision-support company whose platform, EcoProMIS, was developed to provide sustainability monitoring and decision support to Colombian farmers growing oil palm and rice. “We’re working to put cacao on a trajectory similar to coffee,” says Mark Jarman, head of agriculture at Satellite Applications Catapult which co-leads COLCO, a digital platform on which apps are built to optimize the full breadth of the cacao supply chain in Colombia, from seed to sale.

Field research shows that women may have an important role to play in the future of cacao in Columbia as they have better access to smartphones than men, and they are most involved at the harvest, after the harvest, and at the commercialization stages, which is where 70% of cacao’s value is determined. “At Agricompas, we are keen to increase the participation and visibility of women in the cocoa value chain,” writes Deborah Foy, a consultant to Agricompas, on the company’s website.