If you are aware of a strong vinegary smell and you find yourself in a village in southern Ghana at this time of year, it means that you will not be far from a large mat or table covered in brown almond-like beans. The local farmers are drying out this year’s cocoa harvest. Ghana is the world’s second largest cocoa exporter, after neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire and it is its second biggest source of export income. Cocoa was introduced to the colonial Gold Coast from Fernando Po, by Tetteh Quarshie, a Ghanaian blacksmith. Quarshie created a cocoa farm at Mampong in the Akuapem Hills, less than twenty miles from Koforidua. The first cocoa was produced in 1879. The farm is now a tourist attraction and two of the original trees still bear fruit.
Ghanaian cocoa beans are generally recognised as being of a high quality. British confectionery company, Cadbury has been sourcing cocoa from Ghana for one hundred years, currently buying all its cocoa for the UK market here and 15 % of Ghana’s total export output. However there are problems. Productivity is dropping, many farmers are unable to derive adequate income from cocoa alone and some are giving up growing cocoa altogether. The communities in which they live are often remote and poorly served. Only some villages have electricity and few have schools or medical services. Some are not even accessible by 4WD. Young people are leaving to search for more rewarding and less physically demanding work in towns and cities. Cadbury has carefully studied the situation and earlier this year it launched the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, as a means of tackling these problems. The partnership has embarked on a ten year project with a budget of £30m and the aim of ensuring that cocoa growing communities thrive. The partnership involves the United Nations Development Programme and was even mentioned in a piece Bill Gates wrote for Time magazine in August, where he quoted it as an example of creative capitalism.
Cadbury has engaged three organisations in Ghana in carry out the initial phase of the project. VSO is one of these organisations and its work is to undertake research in thirty cocoa growing communities across three districts in the Eastern Region. It will then produce an action plan for each one of them. One of the chosen districts is New Juaben, in which Koforidua is located. I am a member of the small team of volunteers currently assisting the local offices of the Department of Food and Agriculture, the Department of Co-operatives and the Department of Community Development in collecting information from the chosen communities. Between us we have now visited all thirty communities (well 29, it was decided that Worapong would be too hard for us to reach so the villagers came to a neighbouring settlement. We have insisted that next time we will meet in Worapong). We have introduced the project to the relevant chiefs, senior farmers, assemblymen, elders and opinion leaders and invited them to be involved. We are now finalising research tools before beginning to gather information.
The last few weeks have provided a fascinating insight into cocoa farming. We visited a seed production unit at Akwadum and watched the ladies painstakingly pollinating the female flowers on the cocoa trees with the male flowers held in tweezers. They told us men were generally unsuited to the work because their hands were not steady enough. We have watched the cocoa pods being harvested and cracked open and the beans fermenting under palm leaves prior to drying. Theo at the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm took us on the tour informed by his wide knowledge of cocoa. The villages we visited were very welcoming and the villagers are keen to be involved with the project.
Ghanaian cocoa beans are generally recognised as being of a high quality. British confectionery company, Cadbury has been sourcing cocoa from Ghana for one hundred years, currently buying all its cocoa for the UK market here and 15 % of Ghana’s total export output. However there are problems. Productivity is dropping, many farmers are unable to derive adequate income from cocoa alone and some are giving up growing cocoa altogether. The communities in which they live are often remote and poorly served. Only some villages have electricity and few have schools or medical services. Some are not even accessible by 4WD. Young people are leaving to search for more rewarding and less physically demanding work in towns and cities. Cadbury has carefully studied the situation and earlier this year it launched the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, as a means of tackling these problems. The partnership has embarked on a ten year project with a budget of £30m and the aim of ensuring that cocoa growing communities thrive. The partnership involves the United Nations Development Programme and was even mentioned in a piece Bill Gates wrote for Time magazine in August, where he quoted it as an example of creative capitalism.
Cadbury has engaged three organisations in Ghana in carry out the initial phase of the project. VSO is one of these organisations and its work is to undertake research in thirty cocoa growing communities across three districts in the Eastern Region. It will then produce an action plan for each one of them. One of the chosen districts is New Juaben, in which Koforidua is located. I am a member of the small team of volunteers currently assisting the local offices of the Department of Food and Agriculture, the Department of Co-operatives and the Department of Community Development in collecting information from the chosen communities. Between us we have now visited all thirty communities (well 29, it was decided that Worapong would be too hard for us to reach so the villagers came to a neighbouring settlement. We have insisted that next time we will meet in Worapong). We have introduced the project to the relevant chiefs, senior farmers, assemblymen, elders and opinion leaders and invited them to be involved. We are now finalising research tools before beginning to gather information.
The last few weeks have provided a fascinating insight into cocoa farming. We visited a seed production unit at Akwadum and watched the ladies painstakingly pollinating the female flowers on the cocoa trees with the male flowers held in tweezers. They told us men were generally unsuited to the work because their hands were not steady enough. We have watched the cocoa pods being harvested and cracked open and the beans fermenting under palm leaves prior to drying. Theo at the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm took us on the tour informed by his wide knowledge of cocoa. The villages we visited were very welcoming and the villagers are keen to be involved with the project.
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