RTRS at 2024 Partnership Meeting of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF)
RTRS President highlights soy’s leverage and commitment to sustainable practices at World Cocoa Foundation event.
RTRS actively participated in the 2024 Partnership Meeting of the World Cocoa Foundation – WCF, held at the Beurs van Berlage (former Stock Exchange) in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from February 6 to 7, 2024.
Lieven Callewaert, President of RTRS, served as a speaker in the breakout session “Traceability: stories from other commodities”, which aimed to explore other crops’ traceability models, privacy issues and lessons that might be applied to the cocoa sector.
From left to right: Lieven Callewaert (RTRS); Justin Sherrard (Rabobank), Norma Tregurtha (Bonsucro); Inke van der Sluijs (RSPO) and Eileen Gordon Laity (European Coffee Federation – ECF).
During his presentation, Lieven thanked Michael Matarasso, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Director at World Cocoa Foundation, for inviting RTRS to the session. Lieven highlighted the significant impact of soy as a commodity, with a production volume of 370 million tons per year, emphasizing the potential for positive outcomes through responsible and regenerative practices, extending beyond European Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR) compliance.
“Compared to cocoa (5 million tons/year) and palm Oil (70 million tons/year), we could explain the huge leverage of soy as a commodity (370 million tons/year) and the impact we can generate by responsible and regenerative practices far beyond EUDR compliance. Let’s continue together exploring opportunities to achieve sustainable practices,” stated Lieven.
The WFC meeting served as a platform, bringing together cocoa farmers and experts from various sectors, fostering dialogue, collaboration and shared progress on sustainability. This event was intended to align stakeholders for global action in addressing challenges and advancing sustainable practices.
