An island of chocolate gold

17/09/2025

Morning light spills across Praia das Conchas Roça on the island of Sao Tome, as children walk hand in hand to school with their backpacks. Four of them are the children of Camila Varela De Carvalho, a 32-year-old cocoa farmer. Another four are her nephews, all of whom she is raising.

After the children head off, Camila grabs a bucket and a harvesting tool, fashioned from a wooden branch and sharpened edge, and treks to her farm. Once among the cocoa trees, she clears branches and picks a ripe cocoa pod. Making a small incision, she splits the pod cleanly in two with a practiced twist —a skill honed from the early age of eight.

Inside are white pulp-covered cocoa beans, which she scoops into her bucket. Once dried and fermented, these beans will be sold to become chocolates, providing the income that sustains her family and community.

“Cocoa makes a big difference in my life. Because with the money from cocoa I can buy fish and those things for the house we’re without,” Camila explains.

In addition to tending her farm, she works three other jobs while her husband works two. One of these, and her favourite one, is working at the Organic Cocoa Production and Export Cooperative (CECAB), where she is a cocoa inspector. She handles everything from weighing and selecting to stirring the cocoa beans for drying.

Sao Tome and Principe, an island country of the coast of West Africa, relies heavily on cocoa production to support local livelihoods. Lush with rainforests and cocoa plantations, the island is rich in biodiversity but faces increasing forest and land degradation due to agricultural expansion, changes in land use and the impacts of climate change.

Working with cocoa cooperatives in the country, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the national government, launched a project to restore degraded forest ecosystems and enhance sustainable cocoa production as part of The Restoration Initiative (TRI).

Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and in collaboration with International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme, TRI supports nine countries in their journey to restore ecosystems and degraded landscapes. In Sao Tome and Principe, TRI supports cocoa farmers—especially women producers—with improved agroforestry techniques and organic and fair-trade certifications.

FAO partnered with CECAB, an organic cocoa cooperative, of which Camila is now a part.

“Before CECAB, we harvested cocoa, and tractors came to buy it…When the tractor was full, they almost didn't buy any cocoa. But now with CECAB, whenever you arrive, you can sell your cocoa,” says Camila.

Established in 2005, CECAB is now the island’s largest cooperative, uniting 37 producer groups and benefiting more than 2 000 families.

The money Camila earns from selling her highest-yielding crop, cocoa, now allows her to cover her family's living expenses and her children's education, with enough left to last until the end of the year.

Restoring island land and trees

Since 2019, “more than 8 000 hectares of agroforestry areas have been restored and we had the collaboration of 3 500 farmers in these activities,” says Faustino Oliveira, the FAO national project coordinator. The goal is to reach 36 000 hectares, or one third of the country by 2030.

The project established nurseries to grow endemic fruit and other tree species with now over 240 980 seedlings mainly produced and planted in agroforestry plots on both the Sao Tome and Principe islands.

In 2024, Sao Tome and Príncipe’s cocoa agroforestry was recognized by FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). In these traditional gardens, farmers grow a unique and significant variety of cocoa, the Amelonado variety, alongside other fruit trees, creating forest landscapes. This way of farming, passed down for generations, has helped families like Camila’s keep their land fertile, protect water sources and face climate challenges with resilience.

The GIAHS recognition also opens the door to organic and fair-trade certifications, stronger value chains and greater visibility for cocoa farmers. 

A sweet dream

Going forward, Camila dreams of making her own chocolates and blending her own cocoa at CECAB’s own chocolate factory that they established to ensure that farmers benefit from every step of the cocoa value chain.

“The transformation of their product into chocolate gives us feel enormous satisfaction because it is the first time that the people of Sao Tome have their own factory,” says Antonia dos Lantos Neto, manager of CECAB’s chocolate factory.

Camilla has already participated in entrepreneurship training and sessions at CECAB through the project, learning to work with tablets, weigh cocoa and dispatch beans.

It doesn’t faze her that cocoa production in Sao Tome is a male-dominated field.

As she works towards making her dream a reality, her message to her fellow women farmers is: “Being a woman farmer means being a strong fighter. That we, women farmers, always continue to work to ensure there is never a shortage of products on the market. Not even at CECAB,” she concludes. 

Every 16 October - World Food Day - is a chance to celebrate food heroes around the world. From farmers and fishers to innovators and chefs, food heroes are leading local and global efforts to create more sustainable and resilient agrifood systems. But we can all be food heroes: respect food, eliminate waste, reduce unnecessary consumption. Our actions are our future. Let’s build a better one together.