Project and workshop objectives

As defined in the Project Agreement: "The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the welfare of the large number of smallholders cultivating cocoa through the development and distribution of improved varieties of cocoa with good quality and higher and sustainable productivity levels. This type of cocoa can be produced at lower costs as expenditures on disease and pest control will be greatly reduced. The attainment of this objective will raise the competitiveness of cocoa in the market.". The specific objectives are: To strengthen national cocoa improvement programmes and increase international collaboration by carrying out cooperative evaluation, selection and breeding activities in number of countries; To establish cost effective and efficient conservation, characterization and distribution efforts for available cocoa germplasm; To strengthen cocoa germplasm utilization and conservation activities through scientific/technical backstopping, information exchange and human capacity building. The following workshop objectives were identified: Obtain agreed working procedures for common project activities; Discuss administrative and financial aspects of project implementation; Discuss and agree upon the role of the technical and co-financiers working groups; Distribute budwood for the international clone trial; and publish workshop proceedings, including adopted working procedures and recording sheets. Draft working procedures prepared in advance by researchers, were presented during the workshop and discussed in three specific working groups: breeding and agronomy, pathology and entomology. The working procedures were adopted during plenary sessions and agreement was obtained as to the type of application for the procedures, as 'Standard' or 'Recommended' in the different project activities. (Résumé d'auteur)