After two years of coaching with the consultant Dominique Derom, the results are extremely positive for the Yeyasso cooperative. “We have evolved a lot,” confides its director Yeo Yessongbananan Moussa, and, to say the least, it shows!
YEYASSO is a cooperative operating in a rather remote area in the west of Côte d’Ivoire, which had been unstable until recently because of the civil war. It used to be a coffee region primarily which – also because of climate change – has become increasingly attractive to cocoa farming
Even though cocoa was already introduced to Vietnam by the French in the 19th century, cocoa production remained marginal for more than a century. Not until 2000, a government plan was launched to promote the crop in several regions. Vietnam is still a small player on the cocoa market but it has potential. The NAPP (Network of Asia and Pacific Producers), the umbrella organisation of Fairtrade-certified producer groups in Asia, also believes in the potential of Fairtrade cocoa.
As part of its marketing coaching programme the TDC currently accompanies eight cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. One of these is SCINPA (Société Coopérative Ivoirienne de Négoce des Produits Agricoles), which was established in 2003 in Agboville, just north of Abidjan. With its four buy – in sites SCINPA is a trustworthy partner reaching 3000 members in the region. The cooperative has progressed much and has built quite some trust over the years, for instance by investing in community projects such as schools and water pumps and because it has always defended the interests of farmers even during political turmoil. SCINPA has one major customer: Cargill. It co-sponsors Utz certification and the farmer field schools.
In Peru, smallholder farmers grow ‘criollo porcelana’, a cocoa variety with a fine and delicate flavour that has attracted the attention of famous chocolatiers. Meanwhile, this cocoa blanco has won several quality prizes.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the cocoa country par excellence, ECOOKIM is rightly a pioneer. This cooperative, founded in 2004, is a national union that now brings together 23 local cooperatives in the country’s various cocoa growing areas. ECOOKIM defends the interests of no less than 12,000 of the most disadvantaged cocoa farmers. Its mission is to improve the quality of their cocoa in order to conquer the international market. In 2010 the cooperative obtained the Fairtrade certification, followed shortly afterwards by Utz and Rainforest Alliance.
COOPARA was established in 2000, 80 km north of Abidjan. This organisation supports 639 cocoa farmers in the region with the production, processing and marketing of their cocoa. COOPARA aims to secure the future of cocoa production by focusing on sustainability. The farmers face serious problems: ageing plants, poor quality of cocoa and a thinning farmers’ population.
The Yuracaré – an indigenous population of hunters and gatherers – live in the Bolivian part of the Amazon Basin, in the central Bolivian lowlands north of Cochabamba. Collecting wild or forest cocoa – a chocolate lover’s quality product – is an important activity for this small community. Over the past decades, the habitat of the Yuracaré has been threatened by deforestation. Through the new constitution, which gives indigenous communities ‘native community lands’, the Yuracaré want to protect their way of life.
These cocoa cooperatives aim to sell as much of their members’ cocoa as possible at the best conditions possible. But doing so is far from evident.
The production process that turns the cocoa bean into a chocolate bar requires many intermediary steps and involves multinational corporations. More and more chocolatiers all over the world now want to take the whole process in their own hands.
After two years of coaching with the consultant Dominique Derom, the results are extremely positive for the Yeyasso cooperative. “We have evolved a lot,” confides its director Yeo Yessongbananan Moussa, and, to say the least, it shows!
YEYASSO is a cooperative operating in a rather remote area in the west of Côte d’Ivoire, which had been unstable until recently because of the civil war. It used to be a coffee region primarily which – also because of climate change – has become increasingly attractive to cocoa farming
Even though cocoa was already introduced to Vietnam by the French in the 19th century, cocoa production remained marginal for more than a century. Not until 2000, a government plan was launched to promote the crop in several regions. Vietnam is still a small player on the cocoa market but it has potential. The NAPP (Network of Asia and Pacific Producers), the umbrella organisation of Fairtrade-certified producer groups in Asia, also believes in the potential of Fairtrade cocoa.
As part of its marketing coaching programme the TDC currently accompanies eight cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. One of these is SCINPA (Société Coopérative Ivoirienne de Négoce des Produits Agricoles), which was established in 2003 in Agboville, just north of Abidjan. With its four buy – in sites SCINPA is a trustworthy partner reaching 3000 members in the region. The cooperative has progressed much and has built quite some trust over the years, for instance by investing in community projects such as schools and water pumps and because it has always defended the interests of farmers even during political turmoil. SCINPA has one major customer: Cargill. It co-sponsors Utz certification and the farmer field schools.
In Peru, smallholder farmers grow ‘criollo porcelana’, a cocoa variety with a fine and delicate flavour that has attracted the attention of famous chocolatiers. Meanwhile, this cocoa blanco has won several quality prizes.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the cocoa country par excellence, ECOOKIM is rightly a pioneer. This cooperative, founded in 2004, is a national union that now brings together 23 local cooperatives in the country’s various cocoa growing areas. ECOOKIM defends the interests of no less than 12,000 of the most disadvantaged cocoa farmers. Its mission is to improve the quality of their cocoa in order to conquer the international market. In 2010 the cooperative obtained the Fairtrade certification, followed shortly afterwards by Utz and Rainforest Alliance.
COOPARA was established in 2000, 80 km north of Abidjan. This organisation supports 639 cocoa farmers in the region with the production, processing and marketing of their cocoa. COOPARA aims to secure the future of cocoa production by focusing on sustainability. The farmers face serious problems: ageing plants, poor quality of cocoa and a thinning farmers’ population.
The Yuracaré – an indigenous population of hunters and gatherers – live in the Bolivian part of the Amazon Basin, in the central Bolivian lowlands north of Cochabamba. Collecting wild or forest cocoa – a chocolate lover’s quality product – is an important activity for this small community. Over the past decades, the habitat of the Yuracaré has been threatened by deforestation. Through the new constitution, which gives indigenous communities ‘native community lands’, the Yuracaré want to protect their way of life.
These cocoa cooperatives aim to sell as much of their members’ cocoa as possible at the best conditions possible. But doing so is far from evident.
The production process that turns the cocoa bean into a chocolate bar requires many intermediary steps and involves multinational corporations. More and more chocolatiers all over the world now want to take the whole process in their own hands.
