Started in 1974, the Cocoa Research Centre under Kerala Agricultural University picked up after Mondelez International extended it's support in terms of funding in 1987, leading to the establishment of the Cadbury- Cocoa Research Project (CCRP). This can be viewed as an exemplary system in terms of a successful public private partnership that has completed 36 years of hardcore research and service to the farming community. So far, this initiative has helped in developing 15 high-quality varieties with six more expected to be released soon. The Centre also have conducted funded trainings to the farmers regarding cultivation and management practices. This is probably the first public-private research collaboration in the farming sector in the country which can be set as a model for the agricultural institutions across country to show how these type of collabrations can bring promising results in agricultural growth.
Due to this, several milestones have been achieved including the development of world’s first ever 6th generation inbred of cocoa, development of polyclonal gardens, breeding programmes related to abiotic and biotic stress as well as breeding for quality and yield. Standardization of post-harvest technologies for development of chocolates well as building a processing unit which produces different products from cocoa are some of the result due to this partnership.
