TUAT and JICA's initiative “Indication of Origin "Tomé-Açu" for the Cocoa Product” is approved by the Brazilian Intellectual Property Office

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February 12, 2019

Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology worked with the Japan International Cooperation Agency in Brazil from 2011-2016, for a grassroot technical cooperation project “Rural Income Enhancement and Environmental Conservation and Rehabilitation in the Amazon through Dissemination and Certification of Successional Agroforestry Systems”, that initiated an effort to gain geographical indication of cocoa produced in Tomé-Açu, State of Pará. The Brazilian Intellectual Property Office (INPI) approved “Indication of Provenance "Tomé-Açu" for the Cocoa Product” on January 29, 2019. It was in 1929, when development of the Amazon rainforest began in Tomé-Açu in order to form cocoa plantations that would accept a large number of Japanese immigrants. After many years of crisis such as poverty and tropical disease outbreaks during the early period, detention in the World War II, and the spread of pepper blight, cocoa-based agroforestry was developed by the Japanese immigrants and spread among local farmers from early 1970s. Tomé-Açu became officially recognized as a famous place of cocoa from the Brazilian government after 90 years of its foundation. It is the second geographical indication of cocoa in Brazil only next to South Bahia approved last April. In the future, the high-quality cocoa beans sustainably produced in the Amazonian environment will contribute to regional development with their higher added value.

Contact
Masaaki Yamada
Professor, Division of International Environmental and Agricultural Science, Institute of Agriculture, TUAT
Email masaakiy(@)cc.tuat.ac.jp