The Story of Kuapa Kokoo Farmers

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The Story of Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union
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Tetteh Quarshie

• In 1879 a man from Ghana named Tetteh Quarshie
  first brought cocoa to Ghana from Equatorial
  Guinea. Since then cocoa from Ghana has developed
  a global reputation for its quality and its
  taste.

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A main export

• Today cocoa is one of Ghanas main exports.
• Ghana is the second largest exporter of cocoa in
  the world.
• Most of the cocoa is grown by small-scale family
  farmers on 4-5 acres of land.

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Risky business

• Cocoa farming is a risky business.
• The trees are vulnerable to various diseases and
  pests .
• The cocoa price often dips too low for cocoa
  small-scale farmers to survive.

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• Farmers are often paid by local cocoa buyers
  using checks or vouchers, which the farmers then
  cant cash, or which bounce.

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Control of the scale

• Farmers are often underpaid by local cocoa buyers
  using fixed scales, set to show a lower reading
  than the actual weight of their cocoa beans.

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Voices not heard

• Farmers are often left out of the decision-making
  process.
• Their voices are not heard by decision-makers

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Solving the problem
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Nana Frimpong Abrebrese

• A number of farmers, including a visionary farmer
  representative on the Ghana Cocoa Board, Nana
  Frimpong Abrebrese, came to realize that ordinary
  farmers had the opportunity to organize farmers
  and address the problems farmers faced.

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Their own buying company

• The farmers set up a buying company that would be
  run by farmers and for their benefit.

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Good cocoa growers

• The farmers named their company, Kuapa Kokoo.
• Kuapa Kokoo means good cocoa growers.

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Their own cooperative

• These farmers pooled resources to set up Kuapa
  Kokoo, a farmers' cooperative.
• Kuapa would trade its own cocoa, and thus manage
  the selling process more efficiently than the
  government cocoa agents.

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A Fair Scale

• Kuapa set up its own scale.

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Village Recorder

• Kuapa Kokoo put power over the scales in the
  hands of farmers by making sure that each village
  not only had its own scale but the village
  elected a clerk or village recorder.
• People realized the Kuapa scales were fair and
  there was no cheating.

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Kuapas Mission

• Kuapa works to
• empower farmers in their efforts to gain a
  dignified livelihood,
• increase women's participation in all of Kuapa's
  activities, and
• develop environmentally friendly cultivation of
  cocoa.

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Greater Benefits

• Through its commitment to Fair Trade and sale of
  cocoa to the Fair Trade market, Kuapa Kokoo is
  able to return greater benefits to cocoa farmers.
  Its membership is still growing.

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Chocolate company of their own!

• In 1997, at their annual general meeting, the
  farmers of Kuapa Kokoo voted to set up a
  chocolate company of their own in order to return
  even more benefits to cocoa farmers.

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Divine Chocolate Company is born

• With investment from The Body Shop and Twin
  Trading, and support from Comic Relief and
  Christian Aid, Divine Chocolate was born.

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Divine Chocolate in DC

• In 2007 Divine Chocolate launched a company in
  the USA based in Washington DC

The owners of the Culture Shop in DC speak with
Comfort Kumeah of Kuapa Kokoo 
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Buy Fair Trade

• You can help improve the lives of farmers and
  their families by buying Fair Trade Chocolate!

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• The End