encouraging sustainable, responsible cocoa growing

Entry: Bill Guyton

We just completed the second day of the Indonesia International Cocoa Conference, focusing on future production and marketing opportunities. The first speaker, Bayu Khrisnamutri, Deputy of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs in Indonesia, presented the country's national plan for cocoa development. I particuarly liked his remarks on encouraging small scale farmers. "The people ARE the giant", he said, and the government will help, where possible, to ensure their success.

The deputy mentioned that improved farmer productivity will be achieved in Indonesia through better farming practices, improved post harvest activities, and investment in the cocoa industry. He outlined a plan for cocoa production which included replanting, rehabilitation of aging trees, and some expansion of farming into new areas.

Other speakers discussed the market potential for chocolate in China, the regional state and vision for cocoa in Asia, and a new public-private initiative called "Cocoa Sustainability Partnership" or CSP. The presentations were all good, and we plan to post them on the World Cocoa Foundation website in the coming days. At the end of the conference, the organizers announced the formation of an "Indonesian Cocoa Board", but there were few details on this.

For the past two days, I have been in a conference hall, so I am looking forward to the field visit today to see local cocoa farms and fermentation pilot activities.

Entry: Paul Ntim

I would like to share some lessons from a paper I did with other two colleagues, John Ira Kirungi Byaruhanga (Uganda) and Jean-Noel Amantchi Gogoua (Cote d’Ivoire) in Microeconomics Policy course at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University 2007 under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey A. Jehle.

The Paper was titled: Primary school enrolment in Uganda: Implications for poverty reduction. The paper pointed out that potential well-being of Universal Primary Education (UPE) can only be maximized when all children attend school. With poor representation in primary school enrolments, the possibility of reversing the poverty trends in such regions through sector wide programmatic approach like UPE would be greatly undermined. Government should address the causes of poor school enrolment with a view to improving the representation of the affected regions and directly target such regions for special support.

What are the parallel lessons for Ghana in terms of education and poverty reduction especially in the cocoa growing regions/communities? I am convinced that the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) as pertains in Ghana can also be maximized when all children attend school. Regions/communities with poor representation (enrolment pattern) will lag behind other regions/communities in the realization of the full potential impact of FCUBE on human wellbeing indicators and attendant socio-economic development implications.

Government could work hard to address the causes of the poor school enrolment in the affected regions/communities. However, greater results could be attained by directly targeting communities with unique challenges and/or special needs that go beyond FCUBE policy. This would entail allocating proportionately more resources through project-like interventions for activities such as community mobilization; health; population and health knowledge; functional adult literacy programs; and micro credit for income generation at household level. This would also go a long way to arrest poverty, child labour and related problems that Ghana and its development partners are not interested in. This, of course, will call for coordinated efforts from multi-stakeholders including World Cocoa Foundation and its member companies, as well as other development partners to work to improve the welfare of cocoa farming families and their communities including education and health facilities that will attract children to go to school and teachers to stay in such communities.

Entry: Charlie Feezel

I recently had the great good fortune to meet and discuss cocoa with several hundred U.S. teachers at the Annual Meeting/Representative Assembly of the National Education Association (NEA), held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between June 29-July 2.

World Cocoa Foundation had a booth at the NEA Expo where my colleagues and I met representative teachers from across America. We were able to talk about our Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (ECHOES) program in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The timing for the Expo was helpful, as we are gathering information to help develop cocoa education modules for use in math, science, social studies, language, music and many other educational settings. The advice and input of these teachers is an essential part of the process.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the widespread and very sincere interest these teachers had in the people of cocoa growing countries and the activities of the World Cocoa Foundation. Many of the teachers we met had already done very interesting things in their classes with cocoa and chocolate.

My booth partners were Brandy Bertram of Making Cents International, US, Maimouna Doukoure of the Embassy of Côte d’Ivoire and Stanley Straughter of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) We were able to start up a network of teacher advisors who will help guide the cocoa module development in a way that enhances learning and makes it more fun at the same time. The overwhelming support of the teachers we met makes me think this is the beginning of a strong friendship.

Entry: Bill Guyton

Earlier this week, there was an interesting article written by Alistair Thomson of Reuters regarding cocoa farming in Liberia. The article explains the production and marketing challenges facing cocoa farmers in a country emerging from conflict. Mac Pay-Bayee, country manager for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture's Sustainable Tree Crop Program (STCP), spoke of his belief that, with proper education, farmers will be able to “make a fairly good living growing cocoa.” World Cocoa Foundation is pleased to be a sponsor of STCP which is a regional program covering Liberia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. Cocoa producing countries, the US Agency for International Development, and other development agencies are also helping to provide support.

In February, I also had a blog entry on Liberia for those who are interested in reading.