Amsterdam Cocoa Week brought together stakeholders from across the global cocoa and chocolate industry to exchange ideas, strengthen partnerships, and shape the sector’s future.

Yet cocoa production relies on a much broader range of individuals than registered landowners alone. Spouses, adult children, tenants, and sharecroppers all play vital roles in cocoa farming, but they often remain invisible in sector strategies. Most current approaches focus primarily on registered farmers—leaving many contributors excluded from services, research, and sustainability programs. As a result, women, unregistered farmers, and other essential laborers are routinely overlooked in data collection and decision-making.

To examine the complexities of the cocoa sectors—and explore why so many remain unseen—we developed a visual infographic to accompany both a policy brief and a comprehensive report.

The policy brief outlines a structured set of interlinked recommendations for companies, researchers, NGOs, and policymakers.

The comprehensive report provides a detailed analysis of:

• Why these contributors are overlooked,

• The structural barriers that keep them excluded, and

• Practical steps the sector can take to close this gap and build a more inclusive supply chain.

Alongside the publication launches, INCLUDE hosted two key sessions during Amsterdam Cocoa Week:

• A closed multi-stakeholder session with policymakers, private sector representatives, researchers, and civil society organisations to explore strategies for recognising and including invisible actors in cocoa policies and programmes.

• A public panel discussion titled “Why should we care more for invisible farmers and workers in the cocoa supply chain?”

These engaging sessions, together with the publications, highlighted systemic gaps and opened collaborative pathways toward a more inclusive cocoa sector.

But the conversation does not end with Cocoa Week. INCLUDE continues to call for action to ensure no one is left behind in the journey toward a sustainable and equitable cocoa supply chain.