Chocolate Hope: A Mission to Develop Sustainable Agriculture in Colombia

Olivia Ospina-Lerner, 16, is heading to Wharton Global Youth’s Essentials of Finance program this summer, so she can become more financially skilled as an entrepreneur. We caught up with her this month to learn more about her nonprofit, MOCA Colombia, which is focused on helping marginalized agricultural communities in Medellin become self-sufficient. The economic opportunity? Chocolate beans. Olivia is working with farmers to improve cacao production in La Argentina, a small, isolated community, and to provide infrastructure, fertilizer, and education. She helps us understand why she believes that the global chocolate bean market holds such potential. 

Click on the arrow above to listen to our 20-minute conversation. An edited transcript appears below. 

Wharton Global Youth Program: Hello and welcome to Future of the Business World. I’m Diana Drake, with the Wharton Global Youth Program at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. As June approaches, we get very excited around here to welcome high school students into our summer business programs. Today’s guests will be joining us on our Philadelphia campus for Essentials of Finance, and when we learned about what she has been up to behind the scenes, we just couldn’t wait to speak with her.

Olivia Ospina-Lerner, welcome to Future of the Business World.

Olivia Ospina-Lerner: Hello. Thank you so much. I’m very excited to be here with you.

Wharton Global Youth: Tell us about yourself, where you’re from, and where you go to school.

Olivia: I am a little bit from everywhere. I am a true New Yorker, in the sense that my mom is Colombian, and my dad is from Brooklyn. I have spent a lot of time visiting my family back in Colombia. And just as importantly, my mother works in Italy. So, I transfer with her to Italy for three months every year since I was little. That has been really important to me growing up. And as of recently, my family and I have moved to Valencia, Spain, two years ago.

Wharton Global Youth: Truly a globe trotter. I’m sure that has informed a lot of your experiences, and I can’t wait to hear more about it.

To understand the work you’re doing through your organization, MOCA Colombia, we first need a history and agriculture lesson. Deep in the Mountains of Medellin, which is in Colombia, you’ll find climate, soil and topography that supports flourishing crops. Can you tell us about the history of Pablo Escobar in that region, and also the growth of lush banana and coffee crops there?

Olivia: Pablo Escobar is a central figure in Colombia, and he is despicable. He is a murderer. And what he did was capitalize on the agriculture of the coca leaf in Antioquia and in other parts of the Colombian Amazonia. Politically, Escobar was extremely corrupt. He controlled the government, the Congress, and he had a strong hold on the Colombian government. He even aspired to be president. So, it is essential that we understand Pablo Escobar’s huge influence on Colombia. Pablo Escobar is hated. He is hated by the world.

But what is interesting to me, and I hope to many of you, is that in certain areas of Medellin, Pablo Escobar is worshiped. My family and I have traveled throughout Colombia, and what was interesting for me to see was in a particular Comuna, which is a sort of urban ghetto in Medellin, you can still see kids with Pablo Escobar shirts and his face painted on the sides of buildings and on motorcycles. In an interesting comparison, he’s kind of like the Che Guevara of Colombia. He gave hope and he fed the poor, and that’s why, to this day, 30 years later, he is still worshiped in Colombia.

Agriculturally, the coca plant was used by indigenous peoples in Colombia years before the cocaine trade. It really only became an illicit trade with Pablo Escobar’s reign and the coca trade. It was used by the indigenous people for ceremonious purposes, for it has amazing medicinal qualities, and yes, they used it to chew in high altitudes, as Colombia has a lot of mountains and a lot of lush greenery, so it was grown quite quickly by the farmers.

Wharton Global Youth: But now it sounds as though those crops have been replaced by others, for instance, banana and coffee crops. Is that true?

Olivia: Yes. So, after Pablo Escobar’s reign and when he was killed, with the help of the American government, they burned most of the coca fields as they should, and Colombian farmers started to grow coffee, which is a huge, huge export. Colombia is renowned worldwide for its coffee. Colombia’s soil is excellent. Colombia has the prime topography and weather for a lot of plants, including Yuca, bananas —  a lot of different things. So thankfully, that has replaced the coca plant.

Wharton Global Youth: This is where MOCA Colombia comes in — your nonprofit. It has focused on a flourishing crop known as cacao or the chocolate bean. I want to get to that in a minute, but first, you describe your mission as helping small, marginalized agricultural communities in Colombia achieve absolute self-sufficiency, and that your nonprofit is the result of years of hands-on work and collaboration with Colombian communities. What is the journey that has led you to this point? And then we can get into what your nonprofit is up to.

Olivia: Throughout my life, along with my family, especially my mother, we have traveled four to five times a year down to Medellin. Our prime efforts are in Medellin, where we would visit family, but we would also go to huge mercados and buy a lot of basic necessities to bring to the Comunas. Our prime effort is in Comuna Cuatro. And what is important to note is that Comunas are very dangerous in Medellin; a lot of people wouldn’t dare to go into them. I am thankful that we were protected by a lot of people when we went into them. So, our main focus was to bring the people of these Comunas food, medicine, education; we really tried to help those people.

However, once we moved to Spain, we were no longer able to visit Colombia with as much frequency as we did previously. In Spain, I began to notice that what happened was the people of the Comunas demanded things. They wanted us to come back. They became dependent on us. It became an endless cycle of poverty, and it wouldn’t end, because the more we gave, the more they expected from us. I noticed a continuous cycle of poverty with no education. It was a little bit heartbreaking, and you’re a little bit torn because they don’t have the resources to get themselves out of this cycle. So, you want to help, but you don’t want them to become dependent on you.

That is where my journey began. After noticing this endless cycle of poverty, I decided that I needed to venture a little deeper into Medellin. So, I went further away from Medellin, further into these lush green mountains, until I came across La Argentina, which is an agricultural community, but in Spanish, we call it a Verde. So, it’s not just a community. It’s less than that. It’s a conglomerate of small shacks together. They have no stores, no church, no Plaza, no supermarkets. It’s just an isolated group of houses in the midst of the Medellin mountain ranges.

It was there where I spoke to farmers, to the community leaders, and I noticed that they were planting a mixture of banana crops, coffee, and a little bit of cocoa plants. This is where my research began. I started researching by speaking with farmers, by just searching on Google. What could I do? What could I help the community achieve so that they can achieve self-sufficiency? That’s when I realized that chocolate beans were the way to go.

“What I hope to achieve, with the help of farmers and my team there in Colombia, is to capitalize on the gap in the chocolate bean market.” –Olivia Ospina-Lerner, founder, MOCA Argentina

Wharton Global Youth: Why is cacao a viable and lucrative opportunity for La Argentina? How does it represent an opportunity for economic development now and into the future?

Olivia: For the past five years, the world has seen a spike in cacao prices, and this is for one main reason. It is important to note that the main producers of chocolate beans are in the Ivory Coast and in Ghana [in Africa], and they make up around 60% of cacao production. However, recently, sadly, due to climate change and disease, their production of cacao has decreased more than 10% — and this has had detrimental effects, not only in Africa; but worldwide. This has left producers of chocolate, such as Hershey’s and different chocolatiers, scrambling for secondary markets. This is where I targeted a lucrative opportunity for Columbia to maximize their cacao production and become lucrative.

What I hope to achieve, with the help of farmers and my team there in Colombia, is to capitalize on this gap in the market. Because with the decrease of chocolate beans in Africa and producers scrambling for secondary markets, now is the time for La Argentina and other marginalized communities in Colombia to really take advantage of that. Cacao beans are from cacao trees. They grow quickly, not too quickly, but around three years for them to start producing beans. And in La Argentina, we have spoken to the farmers, and they are ready to focus and centralize their production on cacao beans.

Wharton Global Youth: Who is we? I’d love to know more about your team.

Olivia: Yes, so honestly, it is quite a small team. But when I went to La Argentina, where my mother and I stayed for a week, we met with a lot of people, a range of doctors and community leaders. But the main person who I am honestly so thankful for, because without his expertise, without his connections, and without his knowledge, none of this would have been made possible. There is a community leader, and his name is Wilmar. Wilmar is an amazing, amazing person. He is a farmer, and he is extremely intelligent. He has built the school in this community, and he is an entrepreneur in La Argentina. He has helped me devise a strategy to increase cacao production in La Argentina. And he is a central figure and central influence in particularly La Argentina. He is the one who is helping me research cacao production. He really is an expert on all things coffee, the trade of cacao, and what vendors we must go to and pursue. I have become quite close with his daughter [Mariam], who I’m so excited to announce is the first graduate of the little school that they have in La Argentina. And MOCA Colombia is supporting her process through university by providing a scholarship.

Wharton Global Youth: Is she just graduating? Is she around your age?

Olivia: She is a little bit older. She is in her first year of university, but MOCA Columbia has a funny system, because we support her education in university, but on the condition that whatever she’s doing, she will come back to La Argentina and help the community. Right now, she is pursuing a marketing major, and she is also taking English lessons. And we hope that after she is finished with university, she will come back and help us make Colombia and La Argentina a big chocolate producer.

Wharton Global Youth: So, she’s part of the plan and part of the strategy of improving their economy, and I love to hear that. So, what does cacao production look like right now? I want to get a little better sense of that and tell us more about your strategy. What is this vision for the future and for cacao there?

Olivia: Currently, cacao production in La Argentina is very small. They measure their land in hectares, which is around 2.5 acres. I want to say that in a group of maybe eight farms and eight farmers, they have around 40 hectares, which is not a lot. Our plan is to help them increase their cacao production. And La Argentina is a 250-person community. They are small, but more than that, they are extremely isolated. They are surrounded by miles and miles of forest, and there are no roads to get there.

When my mother and I made the trip, it was an eight-hour trip through the jungle in a truck. My main step in MOCA Columbia (and what’s essential for cacao production) is to focus on roads. That’s the first step. They need methods to transport their goods, and we hope to provide trucks and to build roads and to partner with a cement company that’s building roads along that region of Colombia. More than that as well, we hope to, with the help of fundraising and donations, to provide fertilizer, and I also hope to partner with other larger firms to help the farmers have an understanding of how to plant cacao. Because, as I said previously, there are only around eight families who currently have knowledge of cacao production. So, it’s essential that we educate the rest of the community.

Wharton Global Youth: What do you hope to learn in Essentials of Finance this summer in particular that might support your entrepreneurial vision?

Olivia: I have always been interested in finance and anything with numbers. Math is one of my passions, and after my journey with MOCA Columbia, with working with lawyers, with numbers, with money, I really want to bring what I know about cacao production to Wharton. I want to learn how to handle money and everything that goes with a nonprofit, and share my story with everyone.

Wharton Global Youth: How have you grown through this process, Olivia?

Olivia: I think that there are two main ways that I have grown throughout my journey with MOCA Colombia. It has made me more independent and more confident. I have been able to take initiative, something that I don’t think I previously did as much. When I noticed that La Argentina had a lot of medical problems, I reached out and I hunted down clinics in Medellin, and I have set up partnerships with these clinics in hopes that they would support our patients. [And we agreed to] do a little fundraising for them as well. I took the initiative to reach out to law firms in New York City, because I know that I am in a privileged position where I can reach out to law firms and ask for them to do our nonprofit work pro bono. So, it’s really helped me become more confident. I definitely would say that.

Wharton Global Youth: Let’s end with our lightning-round questions. Please try to answer these quickly. What is something about you that would surprise us?

Olivia: I am a very social person, but I must say, I do love to be alone. And when I choose to be alone, I love to find sanctuary in my harp. It gives me a lot of solace. I play the harp, and I have for 14 years.

Wharton Global Youth: What is your favorite way to eat chocolate?

Olivia: I am the biggest chocoholic. I love chocolate, and I must say that from when I was very little, I’ve shared my passion and love for chocolate with my grandfather. My most favorite way to eat chocolate is going down to its basics, nothing more than 75% chocolate. So dark, dark chocolate.

Wharton Global Youth: What would you be caught binge-watching at midnight?

Olivia: Honestly, a guilty pleasure is probably Dubai Bling or the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when I have to escape.

Wharton Global Youth: What is something you would like to learn soon that you don’t yet know?

Olivia: So much. I really do want to explore different career paths. I am extremely passionate about finance, but working with the clinic in Medellin has also opened my eyes to medicine. I could never really be a doctor, but maybe something about the finance of medicine and more about philanthropy, honestly, is a huge passion of mine.

Wharton Global Youth: We’ll have to get you connected with Health Care Economics at Wharton.

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Olivia: This is a funny story. So last week, I went out with my friends, and I have been playing pool for a very long time. It’s one of my hobbies and something I love to do. And just last week, I went up to a random group of guys and I challenged them to a game of pool, and I won. So that was out of my comfort zone, but it was fun.

Wharton Global Youth: Love it. You’re starting your own business-themed talk show. Who is your first guest and what is your first question?

Olivia: That is a tricky one. I would love to speak to perhaps Gordon Ramsay. I think it’s so interesting that he made a career off of food, and perhaps my first question to him would be, why are you so angry?

Wharton Global Youth: Olivia, thank you for joining us on Future of the Business World.

Olivia: Thank you!

Conversation Starters

How does Olivia’s approach demonstrate the potential of youth-led social innovation?

Olivia mentions that she is concerned about perpetuating the cycle of poverty. To what extent can education and infrastructure be more powerful tools for community development than direct financial assistance?

MOCA Colombia is an example of one person’s mission to make a difference. What role can young people play in addressing global economic inequalities? Do you have a personal connection to these efforts? Share your story in the comment section of this article.

Hero Image shot by: Elena Leya, Unsplash