A project to strengthen cocoa farming.
The Cocoa App was born from collaboration among institutions, researchers and farmers, with the goal of democratizing access to technical knowledge in the field.
Why does the project exist?
Rural extension is one of the bottlenecks that limits cocoa production worldwide, including in southern Bahia.
The Cocoa App was developed from the idea that artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool to take technical knowledge to farmers quickly, in simple language and, above all, for free.
Technology at the service of real people and territories.
How it started
The Cocoa App received funding support from Instituto Arapyaú and the administration of the Parque Científico e Tecnológico do Sul da Bahia (PCTSul).
The project was divided into two fronts:
The first resulted in the current version of the app, for online use through WhatsApp. For that, we relied on an AI model trained from a set of images obtained especially for this project, and on technical documents prepared by specialists and used to train the tool.
On a second front, we counted on contributions from specialists at multiple institutions in Brazil and Peru, who provided images for the development and training of a second AI model being developed in partnership with Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. This second model is expected to work offline and may be downloaded as a regular app on a phone.
A collaboration for cocoa farming.
Science, field and technology moving together.
The Cocoa App is an initiative resulting from collaboration among specialists from different fields, who combined complementary experience to develop an accessible, useful and free solution for farmers.
A network of institutions that believes in the potential of science and technology to transform reality in the field.
From knowledge to impact in the field.
The project was developed in stages, bringing together technical knowledge, field data and technology to create an accessible, useful solution for farmers.
01
Agronomic knowledge
Specialists contribute technical knowledge about cocoa.
2023
02
Data and images
Field images and information are gathered to help train the models.
2023 – 2024
03
Artificial intelligence
Computational models are developed and trained from this knowledge.
2024
04
Chatbot
The technology becomes an accessible experience on WhatsApp.
2025
05
Launch
August 2026. The Cocoa App reaches the public with its first set of capabilities.
2026
06
Next steps
Expanding identified diseases, pests and deficiencies and adding new management features.
In progressResearchers, farmers, institutions and partners who believe in the power of shared knowledge.
Knowledge that keeps growing.
The project is evolving.
New data, images, technical knowledge and AI capabilities may expand what the Cocoa App can do.
