Entry: Catherine Alston, World Cocoa Foundation

Recently, I was asked to contribute to the Nourishing the Planet blog. You’ll find below the text of my guest blog entry.

Women small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are greatly impacted by both the economic realities facing their region and the cultural gender biases ingrained in their society. Even though these women spend a significant portion of their time and energy supporting their agricultural livelihoods, they are even less likely to have access to training programs, credit and input supplies such as improved seedlings than their male counterparts. So the fundamental questions are - how can we improve women’s access to agriculture development programs, minimize the cultural barriers in place, and empower them to take actions that will increase their income and enhance the wellbeing of their family?

The World Cocoa Foundation recognizes the potential impact that can be made in household incomes in West and Central Africa through outreach with cocoa farmers. The region accounts for nearly 70% of the world’s cocoa production, 90% of which is grown on nearly 2 million small family farms (averaging 2 hectares or less). Almost 16 million people depend on this crop for their main source in income. The World Cocoa Foundation is proud to support and manage programs that are designed to affect the lives and livelihoods of cocoa-farming communities by encouraging sustainable, responsible cocoa growing. Moreover, it is well recognized that women are more likely to support their families’ welfare and their children’s education with any additional income; because of this, we strive to include a greater population of women cocoa farmers in all of our programs to ensure that they are directly empowered to strengthen the lives of their families.

One of the many training approaches in Africa supported by the World Cocoa Foundation is the Farmer Field School methodology, where women and men gain hands-on training on proper production, pest and disease management and post-harvest techniques. This approach is utilized in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia and Nigeria. When it was recognized that female participation and engagement was low in the field schools due to limited available time and cultural constraints, a shift was made to create a convenient and comfortable learning environment for women utilizing videos to provide similar training exercises. The Video Viewing Club was developed by the Sustainable Tree Crops Program through a grant from the World Cocoa Foundation. These clubs were designed to bring together, married and single women cocoa farmers. The farmers and their trained facilitator, watch training films, review the provided manuals and participate in guided discussions and hands-on field activities. The facilitator educates the group on the same topics as the Farmer Field Schools and the participants are encouraged to not only implement the techniques they have learned, but to share their knowledge with others in their community. The videos are often in a soap-opera dramatization, which is both entertaining and educational for the audience. To date, nearly 1,600 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have received cocoa production training through the Video Viewing Clubs.

The Video Viewing Clubs, which began in 2006, have proven to be a successful way to reach out to women and support them as they take the initiative to improve their cocoa production and their family’s livelihood. One participant, Victoria Boadi of Ghana, nearly tripled her cocoa yields following her participation in the Video Viewing Club, and through this increase in income she was able to better provide for herself and her five children. The World Cocoa Foundation is committed to improving the lives of men and women cocoa farmers in West and Central Africa through sustainable programs and has chosen to continue this successful video training platform in the Cocoa Livelihoods Program. This five year initiative started in 2009 thanks to a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Cocoa Foundation and is further supported by 15 cocoa/chocolate companies and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The primary objective of the Cocoa Livelihoods Program is to double the income of farmers in West and Central Africa and the Video Viewing Clubs will be just one of the ways in which the program will work to ensure that women cocoa farmers have greater access to this initiative and our goal of boosting their livelihoods. The World Cocoa Foundation is excited to be a strategic part of this collaboration and looks forward to working with women cocoa farmers so that they will have success stories similar to Victoria’s.