Farmer Organizations in Côte d’Ivoire to Participate in Cocoa Livelihoods Program

Entry by: Catherine Alston, World Cocoa Foundation While in Côte d’Ivoire for the Cocoa Livelihoods Program (CLP) program launch, I wanted to get out to the cocoa farms and visit with the CLP beneficiaries. In Côte d’Ivoire, CLP will reach 75,000 cocoa-farming households and seek to improve their incomes and livelihoods. Mbalo Ndiaye (CLP Program Director) and I met with some of those farmers while visiting two farmer organizations (FO) in San Pedro. While there, Mbalo and I talked to the farmers about the role of the FO and the services it can provide. We learned that the FO can help link the farmers to supplies such as fertilizer and provide access to the market. The farmers also brought up some concerns on the organizational capacity of the FO and the farmers’ ability to produce higher valued cocoa to the organization. Through the Cocoa Livelihoods Program, these farmer groups will become more efficient, the board will be trained on book keeping and record taking, and they will be a link for the farmers to credit for input supplies. Also, the members will participate in Farmer Field Schools to learn better farming techniques to improve the production and quality of cocoa. It was a pleasure to be able to meet with these farmers and tell them that they will participate in the Cocoa Livelihoods Program. On the same field visit, Mbalo and I traveled the road from the villages where the FOs are located down to a cleaning plant on the coast. Once the farmers’ cocoa is ready and the FO has weighed and tested the quality, the bags of beans are loaded onto a truck and sent on to a cleaning plant like the one we saw. There the beans are tested again and prepared for shipment to Europe, the Americas and Asia where it will be processed into your favorite chocolate product.