Elene Elda Mota is a ribeirinho cocoa producer and artisanal chocolate maker based in Barcarena, Brazil. Ribeirinhos are traditional riverside communities of the Amazon basin, whose livelihoods centre on small-scale agriculture, fishing and forest stewardship.
Mota grows cocoa and transforms the harvest into finished chocolate products, working within a model that connects farm-level production directly to craft processing. Her work sits within a broader movement across the Amazon where ribeirinho and Indigenous producers are reclaiming value from cocoa — a crop native to the region but long dominated by industrial buyers — through local processing and short supply chains that keep income within forest communities.
