Improving Pruning and Water Management in DAF Cocoa Production Systems is a three-year applied research and implementation project (December 2025 to November 2028) led jointly by FiBL and ECOTOP and supported by the Coop Fonds für Nachhaltigkeit and HALBA. It works with cocoa cooperatives in Bolivia (El Ceibo), Ecuador (UNOCACE) and the Dominican Republic (COOPROAGRO).
The project generates scientific evidence on how pruning and water management can be optimised in dynamic agroforestry cocoa systems, and advises HALBA and its partners on how to adapt these practices in their sourcing contexts.
Pruning and water are the two management factors that decide how well a dynamic agroforestry cocoa system performs. The project builds on the long-term SysCom trial in Bolivia and on the high-canopy pruning work started with SWISSCO in Latin America, and extends it with trials and networks of DAF plots in Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, where arborist teams are trained alongside.
The overall objective is to increase the competitiveness and resilience of HALBA’s sourcing of sustainably produced cocoa. FiBL is responsible for the scientific design of the project; ECOTOP for the field implementation, the training of technicians and arborists and the technical support across the three countries.
• Pruning and water management trials on cocoa plots in Bolivia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic
• Networks of DAF plots with the partner cooperatives
• Training of arborist teams in high-canopy pruning
• Supervision missions, cross-country coordination and dissemination of the results to HALBA, its partners and the public
The project is supported by the Coop Fonds für Nachhaltigkeit (Taten statt Worte).
The project is carried out jointly by ECOTOP and FiBL with Coop and HALBA as partners.
Coop Fonds für Nachhaltigkeit – Coop’s sustainability fund finances the project (Taten statt Worte).
HALBA – Chocolats Halba, Coop’s chocolate division; the project sites lie in HALBA’s cocoa sourcing contexts.
FiBL – Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, responsible for the scientific design and leading the project together with ECOTOP.
El Ceibo, UNOCACE and COOPROAGRO – the cocoa cooperatives in Bolivia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic that host the trials and the DAF plot networks.
