Honduras is one of the world’s most traditional cocoa-growing regions, and in 1998, it suffered enormous destruction from a hurricane. Countless cocoa plantations were devastated. Many cocoa farming families switched to livestock breeding and cleared swathes of precious forest in the process. In collaboration with Coop, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Helvetas, HALBA launched a project for reviving the cocoa sector and protecting various breeds of fine cocoa in Honduras in 2008.
HALBA helps farmers organise themselves in cooperatives and re-establish their plantations by means of agroforestry. In order to simplify the trade relationship and provide better support to the farmers on location, HALBA founded its subsidiary Chocolats Halba Honduras in 2013. Among other activities, it organises educational programmes teaching how to cultivate cocoa sustainably and improve the quality of cocoa. In addition, the subsidiary Chocolats Halba Honduras has helped to set up a reforestation project that helped HALBA to offset its operational CO₂e emissions up until 2021.
Since 2019, HALBA has been supporting its subsidiary Chocolats Halba Honduras in the transition from its previous agroforestry systems to the model of dynamic agroforestry (DAF) (project phase 1).
In 2021, HALBA was able to secure the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) as project partners for the second phase of the project. However, cooperation with USAID was discontinued by the new US administration at the beginning of 2025.
Now in its third phase, the project is funded by SWISSCO and the Chocolats Halba Honduras Foundation and supports 250 small-scale farmers in Honduras in sustainable organic and Fairtrade cocoa production through dynamic agroforestry (DAF). The goal is to increase income, diversify crops, sales of dried fruits and involve women and young people to strengthen the cocoa sector. Some 191 cocoa farmers are currently cultivating their land under DAF conditions, totaling around 145 hectares.
