Entry: Marisa Yoneyama, World Cocoa Foundation

The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) book club is a group of professionals from FAS who meet monthly to read and discuss a book of particular relevance to their work, often times with book authors or other subject matter experts. This month, the book club will be discussing Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa by Orla Ryan. Ms. Ryan is a freelance journalist based in London who previously worked for the BBC. She also worked for Reuters Ghana, where among other topics, she covered the West African cocoa sector.

Bill Guyton, President of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) has been invited and will be addressing the FAS book club. WCF has worked closely with USDA on cocoa sustainability issues, especially in partnership with FAS programs. FAS has looked to Bill for insights into sustainable cocoa production and to further communicate the tangible and successful programs that WCF has implemented, and currently manages. FAS has a keen interest in Bill speaking about the partnerships that WCF has created and how WCF is working to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers.

To read more about the FAS/WCF-funded Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship Program, Global Cocoa Initiative, and other WCF programs, please click here.