Cocoa Life

Established in 2008, the Cocoa Life programme an initiative that supports sustainable cocoa growing and aims to secure the livelihoods of a million farmers in cocoa-growing communities across Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean. It is only possible through the unique partnership between Mondelez International and VSO.

Cocoa Life aims to improve the income of cocoa farmers by helping them increase their yields and produce top quality cocoa beans. It also aims to introduce new sources of rural income through microfinance and business support, and invest in community-led development from schools and libraries to wells for clean water. This is a pioneering public-private model that is led from the grassroots up. Farmers, non-governmental organisations, governments and international agencies including VSO, are working together to meet mutual objectives.

In Ghana where cocoa yields are hitting only 40% of their potential, VSO is helping to deliver the project by:

Supporting cocoa yields: VSO’s volunteers are providing training on sustainable agricultural methods to increase cocoa yields
Fairtrade certification: VSO is providing training for farmers to ensure they are certified and continue to be registered as Fairtrade
Business management and entrepreneurship skills training: VSO is providing training and expertise to the farming communities to engage in complementary livelihoods activities
Increasing awareness: cocoa farming has been mostly overlooked by young farmers in favour of employment in urban areas. VSO set up ‘cocoa ambassadors’ to engage and encourage youth with the programme and cocoa farming.
Child rights programme: VSO is training community members and schools on major laws and conventions relating to children’s rights to ensure cocoa farming communities safeguard the rights of children.
Empowering women farmers: VSO is training ‘women extension’ volunteers to provide support and assistance specifically to women cocoa farmers, who are often marginalised
Institutional capacity building: VSO is working with the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture to provide effective and sustainable services to farmers and cocoa communities
Institutional linking: establishing forums to bring together farmers, local, regional and national government to strengthen links across the cocoa value chain

In the next ten years Cocoa Life will invest a further $400M in communities across Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Dominican Republic and Brazil to develop sustainable cocoa supply and create thriving communities.

Turning farmers into businessmen

Freddy Akuffo has been a cocoa farmer since 1969 when he inherited his farm from his father and has experienced the challenges of cocoa farming. Small-holder cocoa farmers like Freddy are still reliant on manual labour; machines have not yet replaced the machete at harvest time.

Many of Freddy’s cocoa trees are old and do not give fruitful harvests, yet new trees can take years to bear fruit. Cocoa farmers are faced with the difficult decision of whether to suffer consistently poor yields or to go for years without harvest while new trees develop.

Yet things are changing. A new confidence is coming into the community of Mbaem. The Mondelēz International Cocoa Partnership is bringing changes that are helping people – young and old – to think about cocoa farming in a different way.

Cocoa farmers have rarely benefited from formal training. Skills have always been passed on from father to son so there were things they weren’t doing in the best way.

Farmers have learned more productive farming techniques and received advice on maintenance. They were introduced to a new cocoa plant which harvests in just 18 months. The community has also been provided with machines which are helping to keep parasites at bay.

The results are impressive. Since his training, Freddy has seen his yield increase from 180 bags of cocoa a year to 220. In the whole community of around 100 farmers production has gone from 1,150 bags a year to 1500.

But Freddy’s income has not just increased as a result of the cocoa yields. He is also the proud owner of 37 pigs. VSO has been working with farmers to improve their income by growing different produce and by rearing animals that can be taken to market, such as pigs and guinea fowl. He talks of the changes in his family’s quality of life and being able to send all of his children to school.

Bismark Bekoe, who is the leader of the United Cocoa Farmers’ Association, says this new feeling of enterprise in the community is making everyone think differently: “Before people didn’t see cocoa as a business. They relied on it but they didn’t see it as a business. Now we all see ourselves as business people.”

This shift in mindset is what will bring about long-term change. By seeing the increasing profits of the older farmers, the young people will start to see a future in cocoa and see that they can be business people as well as farmers.

Read more about Cocoa Life in Ghana:
Helping female farmers get better at business