Fair Trade Chocolate is Divine!

Recently I headed to Kumasi for my mid-placement retreat with the other volunteers. For this we headed to Kumasi and visited the Kuapa Kokoo Cocoa company. Kuapa Kokoo is a Fair Trade certified cocoa famers’ cooperative organization in Ghana. It is the only cocoa company to have Fair Trade

certification in Ghana. Pictures are below the lengthy bit of text!

Ghana has 60% of its population working in agriculture, of which cocoa is the largest export, as Ghana is the second biggest supplier of cocoa in the world. Most of the world’s Fair Trade chocolate comes from Kuapa Kokoo, the largest cocoa company in Ghana, with over 1500 farmer groups and 65,000 farmers. From Ghana the beans go to the Netherlands where they are processed into bulk chocolate. These chocolate blocks are then sent to Belgium, Switzerland, England, the United States of America, Canada, and other wealthy nations where companies add their own special ingredients to make finished chocolate

for consumers to enjoy. Kuapa Kokoo is unique in that it owns large shares in the Divine Chocolate company U.K. and U.S.A. Divine Chocolate is Fair Trade certified, is sold at places like the Body Shop and Ten Thousand Villages in Canada, and thus adds associated prestige and benefit for the company in

Ghana. Kuapa Kokoo gets to reap a share of the profits from the sale of Divine Chocolate, thus allowing them to give cash payments to cocoa farmers in Ghana.

Fair Trade certification allows a guaranteed minimum price per metric tonne for cocoa to be paid to farmers, regardless of fluctuation in the trading price on the world market. In addition, farmers are given a price premium on top of that guaranteed minimum price, ensuring that they are able to earn a living

wage and earn more than non-certified cocoa farmers. For example, the price of cocoa, which is fixed by the Ghana government's Cocoa Board, may pay $2,000.00 per metric tonne of cocoa produced to producers. Fair Trade certification would give each farmer an additional $150.00 per metric tonne as

a premium directly to the farmer or farmer group. In addition, because Kuapa Kokoo owns shares of Divine Chocolate, the share of profits they own can be distributed to farmers in the form of cash payments. Also, being fair trade certified, farmer groups and communities get to propose community projects to enhance the

living conditions and quality of life they enjoy. If a project gets approved, communities get to enjoy a project that all of its members have agreed upon. Examples of past projects include the construction of school buildings, purchasing of corn mill/oil extractors, boreholes/hand dug wells, mobile medical clinics,

machetes for all members, and training and educational workshops to enhance their skills and practices.

Pros versus Cons:

Pros:

Based on a tour to a cocoa community which was Fair Trade certified, I would argue that for cocoa farmers in Ghana, being Fair Trade certified outweighs the costs. 

Pros include the following:

-A guaranteed price for farmers

-A $150.00 premium for each tonne produced

- The Co-op owns 40% of shares in Divine Chocolate U.K., thus setting them apart, as they get dividend payments from profits in U.K. for the sales of Divine Chocolate

-The company structure is is bottom up

-The executive committees are democratically elected

-The first female president of the co-op was elected in August

-Organization is very gender balanced and empowering

-Micro-finance schemes for woman have been created

-All members are farmers

-Gives benefits that farmers actually need back in their home communities

-Kuapa Kokoo has created a credit union, a farmers trust, a union, Divine Chocolate, and Kuapa Kokoo limited (office for business affairs), and a commercial wing

-Office staffed by farmers who have ability to elect and fire staff if they wish

-Farmers are ones who own Divine Chocolate

-Pride/prestige exists amongst farmers as they are ones who own U.K. chocolate company

-The more they sell to fair trade, the more increase in social premium = direct cash bonuses to farmers (direct incentives)

-Social projects: schools, water wells/bore holes, woman’s group’s, small micro-credit programs have all been created

-Skills training workshops are provided to benefit the whole community i.e. soap, palm oil production training, implements for these are provided

-Multi-National Corporation Cadbury has signed a deal with Kuapa Kokoo, ensuring a large increase in sales and premiums for farmers. This is as Cadbury senses a need to get on board with fair trade due to consumer pressure.

-Raise cocoa farmers to a dignified position where they are proud of their livelihood and that they can provide for their families

-Environmental standards: Educate farmers and monitor the work they do. Train them via farmer field schools to get them to change poor practices. i.e. too much shade = disease.

Cons:

-Non-members do not see cash benefits, however members and non-members still get benefit in community via community projects i.e. water bore holes

-over-supply farmers grow has to be sold for the market price with no social premium

-cost of certification is high, however this has been overcome as the Kuapa Kokoo pays for it, and farmers only need to pay a minimal fee i.e. $1.00GHc, which does not come close to benefits afforded by being fair trade certified

-Requiring Multi National Corporations to buy in to Fair Trade market, which creates future contract security concerns

-Divine: must deal with middle-man grinder in Holland for chocolate making

-Cost = biggest hindrance to Ghanaian's as the majority can not afford to buy it as to them it is a luxury food. It they could bring the cost down people could buy it. 

-No future plans to investigate selling chocolate in Ghana, only make for divine  overseas as concern over making it in Ghana, as chocolate would have to be harder and of lower quality to hold up in Ghana's climate.

-Cadbury is developing 100+ communities of their own in Ghana, which once

they get Fair Trade certified means Kuapa will need to fill a big contract gap

Kaupa Kokoo office in Kumasi

Me and the EWB team at a farmer community tour

Cocoa Trees

Cocoa Pods/fruit

Cocoa nuts inside

Fermenting of Cocoa nuts (7 Days)

(Drying of Cocoa Nuts - 7 Days)

Dried cocoa nuts ready for bagging and transport

Third World Healthcare

So having got sick with Typhoid, being hospitalized, then having two of my host family members go through the same thing, as well as having two people from my village passing away last week, I felt it was time to describe the state of health care in rural northern Ghana. I will however, leave it up to my local EWB colleague, Mina Shahid, who is working in Saboba with the Governance and Rural Infrastructure team. Mina recently had just gotten out of the hospital after having been treated for typhoid and wrote a great article on the current  state of healthcare here. His blog post is below and if you care to read more about his placement, check out his blog at: http://zikomoafrica.wordpress.com

Why we do what we do part 2!!!

October 17, 2010

So I wasn’t planning on writing a part 2 on this topic but I can’t resist due to some recent experiences with medical care in Ghana. Imagine a hospital that has no running water or sanitation facilities. I know… it’s hard to believe. It almost seems like a ridiculous thing to even consider – how can a hospital not have running water?

My home for 12 hours

Well my friends, unfortunately that is the case in many of Ghana’s rural health centers and even metropolitan hospitals. This past Friday, I woke up in the morning not feeling too great. I figured that I had malaria because I missed a few days of my anti-malarials but after 3 days of taking the treatment medication my condition didn’t really change, just got worse. So yesterday afternoon I went over to the Saboba Medical Center and got tested for Typhoid and Malaria. The results – no malaria, but I definitely had typhoid! It seems that everybody is getting typhoid in Saboba these days including a colleage of mine. I asked the nurses at the clinic what the deal was, and they mentioned that they’ve seen an increase in typhoid cases in the past month probably due to the heavy rains.

But only if we had some data to verify this, then we could make some decisions at Ghana Health Service on how to deal with the issue. One approach may be to use the Ghana Information Service truck which has speakers attached to it to broadcast messages in the community about how it’s typhoid season and the steps you can take to prevent getting it. Once again, the data is missing, so decisions can’t be made effectively.

On to the issue of hospital infrastructure. Typhoid is a water-borne disease often caused by poor sanitation infrastructure. Hmm, so you must be wondering – isn’t it counter-productive to have a hospital that has no sanitation infrastructure, treating typhoid patients. I’d say, it’s probably not the best case scenario.

And this is why a fellow EWBer has been ill for the past week and in and out of hospital in Tamale. She probably got even more ill while she was in the hospital due to a lack of sanitary conditions. Once again… how can a hospital not have running water?

The answer is not lack of money. It’s not lack of technology. But in fact, as Patrick Awuah mentions in his Ted Talk, it is lack of leadership. You see these hospitals were built with running water and sanitation facilities but they’ve never been maintained and subsequently they no longer function. Maintenance is a thing of leadership, of being capable to plan ahead, to look at data and finances and allocate appropriate measures to keeps things working.

So this is where G&RI comes in. The G&RI strategy is not only based on creating district data systems and ensuring evidence-based decision making but it is also heavily founded on improving district leadership as a whole. We’re working with district officers to improve their ability to manage their work, while making better decisions for the people of their communities. We’ve seen District Coordinating Directors (DCDs), the administrative heads in the districts as key leaders, and have been running a DCD Fellowship exploring various leadership skills that they think would help them do their job better. I’m beginning to believe that lack of strong leadership in district governments is a major issue affecting Ghana’s decentralization processes and rural development and I’m happy that the G&RI team is addressing it.

I know it sounds a little cliché, this idea that what Africa needs is “good leadership.” But spend a week on the ground in a district, and you’ll begin to believe it. If the respective health offices in Saboba and Tamale had leaders who had the skills to plan effectively for maintenance of their facilities, than perhaps there would be running water and sanitary conditions. What is both frustrating and exciting about working in the government system in Ghana is that there is so much potential for positive change if some of the barriers can be overcome.

So in concluding, it’s important to keep in mind that systems only work for change if the people running those systems want change. The G&RI program will go nowhere unless district officers desire to create informed decisions, and provide better public services to constituents and often this is a result of good leadership.

Thanks for reading!!

p.s. I got the medication I needed and I am now feeling great!

Farmer Group Visits

Hello everyone,
Sorry for the delay for getting this blog post out to you. These past two week have been pretty crazy for me, as I first got diagnosed with malaria and was treated for that for a week, only for my condition to get worse with it turning out I in fact had typhoid, not malaria. This led to me ending up in the hospital for 48 hours. After treatment which I am still continuing, I am starting to feel like myself again and have headed away from Saboba for our midplacement retreat back in Tamale and Kumasi.
Below are some photos and stories of some new farmer groups formed by the Ministry District Agricultural Officers of Saboba. These groups have been brought together to deliver the 10 workshops of the Agriculture of a Business Program.

Group 1: M-Moadani Farmers Group, Yankazia village community, Wapuli, Saboba District. District Agricultural Officer: Mr. P.M. Grundow.

 The M-Moadani group participated in the third workshop of the Agriculture As A Business program, the "Group Finances" card. In this workshop members learned the importance of pooling together finances in order to get access to loans. This is as if they pool their money together, they then have more bargaining and purchasing power, to allow them to open a bank account, to purchase certain inputs they could not afford as individuals and to allow themselves to potentially be able to access certain programs and loans that may be available to them as individuals. This mechanism of shared pool financial resources can also act as a safety net for members of the group in times of unforseen problems that may arise, such as flooding or droughts. By demonstrating regular contributions, in which each member of the group contributes monthly dues, the group is then able to build credit and demonstrate their continued strenghth and responsibility to then be able to get larger bank loans for future group projects. This financial responsibility may then lead to individual members being able to open personal bank accounts and gain access to personal loans to expand their businesses. A 100% mandatory democracy, combined with shared duties and responsibilities, allows members to hold each other accountable, to ensure transparency, to allow effective recording and allow tracking of group goals and successes. Effective record keeping allows farmers within the group to begin to learn how to plan their group farm projects, as by assessing inputs and outputs, expenses and profits from one growing season to the next, groups can develop effective financial plans in order to maximize profit expectations for the next year/project.
This same workshop was then presented and discussed by a second farmer group in the area on the same day, they Ti Goup M-Puan Farmers Group, which translated to english means "to hold firmly together".

Another day trip out to the field, allowed me to visit they Timuun Farmers group of Dicheeni, in the Saboba District. This group was presented the first workshop of the Agriculture As A Business program. Mr. E.A. Syme is the District Agricultural officer who presented this workshop to the group. In this workshop, members discussed and shared the potential benefits of being united in a strong farmers group. This could create a social security safety net, allow for pooling of resources and for them to join in a group project. This group hopes to contribute regularly to a shared group bank account to one day be able to purchase a tractor. By buying a tractor, the group then hopes to be able to do a large scale block farm. A block farm is a farm of a mono-cropped single cash-crop, either maize, rice or soybean, done on a large tract of continuous ploughed land. This group is looking forward to the security of joint projects, as this past year through a government block farm project, they have seen 30+ acres of a rice crop be destroyed by flooding. I was able to get out in a canoe for a couple hours to tour the rice field where the rice is planted and currently submerged.

Canoe trip to flooded rice field in Dicheeni

Timuun Farmers Group, Dicheeni, Saboba District.

Field Trips

In the last few weeks I have been pulled out of the office and outside the town of Saboba for a number of events. Here I will share some of these with you.

First, I headed to Tamale for a week to attend a directors meeting at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture office for two days. At this meeting the Block Farm program was discussed. Block Farms are an initiative from the federal government, where districts are to organize farmers and supply them with inputs on loan to carry out large scale, single plot, monocrop cash cropping. Crops grown include maize, rice, and Soybean. The intended purpose of the program is to get farmers to shifting to farm operations and running them as businesses, as opposed to subsistence operations. This is as most farmers in the Northern region grow many crops in an intercropped, diversified style to mitigate the risk of crop failure. These operations tend to be lest then 5 acres in size. This project hopes to see farmers shifting to one crop operations for their income generation needs, as well as creating a stable supply of cereal/staple crops to ensure Ghana can maintain food security and a national surplus.

After two days of marathon meetings, where the directors of all 20 districts outlined how the program was running to date in their respective districts, we were able to get a clearer picture of the challenges and shortcomings shared across the Northern region with respect to the program. We got a break and were able to tour a rice processing facility. This one is located on the Ministry site, and is run by a group of women how pay for the milling themselves. A total of 10 women work at the centre to 1) clean the rice in water, 2) remove floaters, 3) boil the rice, 4) ensure a moisture content of 35%, 5) fire the rice, 6)dry the rice, 7) mill the risce. No polishing of the rice is done on site, as buyers are okay with the natural and inconsistent color of the grains. The types of rice processed at the site include Jasmine, par boiled and a numbered genetic variety. Par boiled rice tends to be more labour intensive then just straight milled rice and thus should be priced at a higher rate then straight milled rice, but due to lack of consumer education, this is not the case. Par boiled rice also maintains more nutrients and flavor and is often preferred by locals. In thanks to the Engineers Without Borders partnership to promote Ghana grown rice, which was done by an advertising campaign, including a radio jingle commercial, the popularity of their product had boomed and word of mouth that their product was a quality one helped sustain their growth. Rice collected from the Block Farm program is processed at this site through a contract with the ministry.

(Photos of the rice processing centre with rice being dried out in the sun)


The following day, prior to our monthly country meeting with our Engineers Without Borders team, me and Mark Abbott were fortunate enough to take a trip down to Pong-Tamale, where Jason Bletcha, a fellow professional volunteer is working with the Agriculture College. Here are some photos from our tour of the Animal Health and Production College:

(part of the 15000 Hectares of land belonging to the college)

(A barn and a tractor with sprayer at the college farm)

(Livestock tracking board which is updated monthly at the livestock production station)

(Pigs in a housed facility used as breeding stock to be sold. Most pigs owned by farmers are free range and sometimes will be tied to trees and moved daily, unlike here where the pigs are housed and pens cleaned daily.)

(Goats of a domestic breed being raised to be sold as breeding stock)

The agriculture college has a large number of graduates that move on to work within the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (85%). The reason being is that while most come from farm families and see agriculture as a good practice, they refuse to want to do agriculture as a business due to the associated risk that surrounds the industry. Therefore most graduates want the security and benefits of a salary government or private sector job. Those who enter the private sector tend to work in veterinary or drug services, as well as for fertilizer and farm input companies. Some marketing boards do exist in Ghana, amongst them are the Cocoa board as well as a shea nuts board. Emerging agriculture products include pineapples and yams, both of which have not been organized to the point of being marketed by a board.

(Jason Bletcha of Ottawa EWB, Madame Faustina of the Livestock Production Station and Mark Abbot of Vancouver EWB, all standing outside the chicken incubating and production station.)

(The Tro-Tro or Mini-bus that broke down on the way from Yendi to Saboba after driving through a two-foot puddle of water in the middle of the road. We made it about 50 feet after crossing before oil started gushig out of the bottom. They replaced the oil filter, to the point where the leak became a slow leak, and we were on our way again.)

The Tro (Mini-bus) after having broken down a second time. This time it was the drive shaft that failed. Luckily they had an extra one on board which they used to replace the faulty one. In total, delays on this trip were 2.5 hours, so my 4 hour trip home from Tamale ended up being a 6.5 hour ordeal. Looking forward to the dry season when the more direct road and metro-mass transit bus open up  again.

Upon returing to Saboba, two days later I was invited into the field to join a workshop.

The workshop was in Wapule, about 20 miles west of Saboba, the district capital of the Saboba district. It was for the Integrated Soil Fertility Management Program. It consisted of a demonstration field, with 5 plots, 4 of them maize, one of them beans for fixing nitrogen back into the soil and teaching farmers about crop rotation. The maize plots had different fertilizers applied to them and in varying amounts. The purpose to show farmers that proper application, and not quantity over quality of fertilizer used can yield better results. 

Ministry of Food and Agriculture Staff from the Saboba and Chereponi District Agricultural Development Units attending the workshop with farmers from Wapule who were invited to learn about the demonstration plots.

Plot # 1: Maize with fertilizer applied in proper quantity. Mr. Syme and Mr. Musah from my office in the photo.

Plot 2: Mr. Grundow walking past the bean plot to the maize plot, explaining why crop rotation and using legumes to restore soil fertility is important.

Plot #3: Fertilizer applied to maize, but in less quantities they recommended.

Plot #4: Fertilizer applied to maize in proper quantities and at proper times

Plot # 5: Ammonia only applied to maize. Notice how this maize is much shorter then the other plots.

 Me giving the closing speech, encouraging farmers to use safe and best practices.