COOPERATIVE FARMERS BEGIN FIRST GRADE COCOA EXPORT FROM SIERRA LEONE

1. COOPERATIVE FARMERS BEGIN FIRST GRADE COCOA EXPORT FROM SIERRA LEONE EARLY GAINS AND CHALLENGES

2. NEW DEVELOPMENT • For the first time since Sierra Leone’s war ended in 2002, cocoa farmers through their own cooperatives & company have begun to export first grade cocoa beans that meet international market standards. • Since February 2010, the Rural and Private Sector Development Project has been supporting the formation and functioning of these cooperatives. • The three new cooperatives formed are: Kasiataama of Kono District, Tegloma of Kailahun District and Munafa of Kenema District. These have come together to form a cocoa export company called KayeiGworma. • The cooperatives have now been established in 16 out of the 46 main cocoa producing chiefdoms across the country’s eastern districts of Kailahun, Kenema and Kono.

3. TYPES OF SUPPORT THROUGH THE PROJECT THE COOPERATIVES: • Have been organized and made functional to operate freely, openly, transparently and democratically • Have received continuous best practice training and mentoring in cooperative organizational management • Have received training in post-hearvest cocoa processing • Have received training and tools for pre-export quality testing to meet international quality standards • Have received capital to purchase, transport, store and export dried cocoa beans and buy input seeds/seedlings • Have received regular world market price updates

4. EARLY GAINS BY FARMERS FORMATION OF THE COOPERATIVES HAS: • Built price consciousness & strengthened the bargaining position of cocoa farmers both for marketing & export • Built a sense of ownership and hope among farmers that over and above their immediate returns from cocoa sales, they now have a company that their cooperatives have share in which is a collective investment/saving scheme • Built skills of farmers that would translate into better value chain management and higher profits • Built assets such as cocoa testers, bikes, seedlings, etc. • Built initial capital that will accrue interest and profit

5. CHALLENGES THE COOPERATIVES FACE OUTSTANDING AND EMERGING CHALLENGES WHICH INCLUDE: • Crop management, security, protection and expansion • Harvest transportation from farm to processing site • Adherence to best practice principles in cocoa processing • Handling, Bagging and Storage of dried cocoa beans • Transportation from village stores to district stores • Transportation from district stores to export stores • Managing the stiff competition with other companies • Organizational management challenges • Political challenges

6. THE COCOA PROMISE Cocoa used to be Sierra Leone’s number one agricultural export earner before the war. After the war, the World Bank conducted the Diagnostic Trade Integration Study. Here is quote from the study: “cocoa holds particular promise for fairly rapid growth in the next ten years which could bring direct benefits to more than 140,000 households, many of them very poor. It is already the most important agricultural export, in spite of negligible support. The experience of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana offers ample proof of the cocoa potential. International market conditions remain sufficiently robust to absorb whatever Sierra Leone might produce for the foreseeable future, providing reasonable quality standards are met. And cocoa expansion could help absorb some of the labor which will be released from artisanal mining over the next ten years. As the Government’s capacity to drive agricultural export production is extremely limited for the moment, this study’s first and most important message is: get the cocoa sector working again”