Location of Bilsa Biological Station within Mache-Chindul Reserve in Esmeraldas Province, northwest
via Chocolate and the Conscious Consumer – The Mac Weekly
Tag Archives: farmers
About the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund
The Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative (HCP) is delighted to announce the following designated HEIRLOOM producers of quality and flavor cacao beans at origin. CONGRATULATIONS! We thank you for your continued effort to conserve the delicious diversity of cacao. Because of you, the world can enjoy great tasting chocolate!
Forest for a living
Forest for A Living
is the product of a collaborative effort brought to fruition by a suite of forward-thinking institutions, each dedicated to the development of concrete solutions that address the reality of current conservation challenges. While we officially got off the ground in 2012, the seed for this work began evolving in 2003 through a largely self-propelling participatory process that involved dozens of stakeholders from campesino to scientist to government authority.
http://www.forestforaliving.org-SD
https://www.facebook.com/forestforaliving
Link
In the future, Maura envisions having better living conditions, expanding more into farming, getting her children to work more on her farm, and, if some of her children so choose, providing them with an education, or, if not, she would love to see her sons become cacao farmers.
For the first time I’m savouring “fine, organic and fair”chocolate from Ghana.
Thanks to a special friend: Sepp Schoenbachler.
Felchlin has processed cacao from Ghana, West Africa for many years. Until recently, it was impossible to acquire the cacao beans directly from the producers. The project Yayra Glover has enabled us to eliminate this problem and allow us to guarantee the origin of our cacao beans from Ghana, therby specifying traceability to the origin.
Ghana Cocoa-of-origin
The history of cocoa in Ghana
The fist missionaries from the Basle Mission were sent to the then Gold Coast, today’s
Ghana, in the year 1828. According to the story, these missionaries, who were working together
with Tetteh Quarshie, brought cocoa into the country. Around 1870, the Ghanaian
Tetteh Quarshie worked for a few years on an island in the Gulf of Guinea. The island, on
which cocoa was already grown, was a Spanish colony. Despite the strict prohibition, Tetteh
Quarshie succeeded in smuggling a few cocoa beans into his homeland on his return to
Ghana and successfully raised cocoa plants from them. The Spanish-Portuguese cocoa monopoly
was thereby broken, and the valuable beans found their way to Africa.
The importance of cocoa in Ghana today
Ghana is the second largest export country for cocoa in the world. For the last 60 years, all
the cocoa grown in Ghana had to be sold to the “Ghana Cocoa Board”. This government organisation
controlled and marketed all the cocoa, either for export or for domestic use (local
processors). The raw material cocoa is one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Ghana
and is therefore of enormous importance.
The Yayra Glover Company and its vision
According to the vision of the Ghanaian Yayra Glover, cocoa production in Ghana should be
realigned in the future. His company wants to cultivate and market the cocoa from the entire
Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar district in line with both, organic and Fairtrade guidelines. And all of
this with the active support of Swiss agronomists.
In doing this, Yayra Glover trains and informs the farmers about local, regional, national and
even international topics. Important issues such as child labour, organic food, natural plant
protection and sustainable agriculture are thereby central. However, in addition, the people
should also be given the means and the opportunities to themselves bring about changes in
their own lives.
He also sees his task as being the general improvement of the well-being of the farmers and
their families by means of smaller social research activities. Students from universities have
the opportunity to work for agricultural communities, to collect data and to create practical
recommendations that can be implemented at the local level in order to raise the prosperity
of the population.
Through tireless work, Yayra Glover succeeded in convincing the “Ghana Cocoa Board”
about his project. He is thereby the first person who is able to sell his cocoa directly to his
customers, of course with the support and approval of the Cocoa Board.
Cocoa from the Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar district, Ghana
The Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar district, from which Felchlin now obtains its Ghanaian cocoa,
lies on the southern edge of a large forest area, 60 km north-west of the capital city Accra.
Coastal savannah extends towards the south, while the Aburi chain of hills forms a natural
border to the east, with the protected Attewa forest to the north-west. The entire district is
relatively hilly, with flat valleys intersected by rivers and streams.
Yayra Glover, a Ghanaian with strong ties to Switzerland, is the founder of the project “Suhum Cacao”. He studied and worked in Switzerland for many years and his family still lives here. His vision is to cultivate cacao in the Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar district under the organic and Fairtrade certification labels. In this way, he hopes to support his countrymen by producing a premium quality cacao that would secure their future financial existence.
The cacao cultivation incorporates an area of approximately 6’500 ha, which involves around 2’600 small cacao farmers. After long negotiations, Yayra Glover convinced the Ghana Cacao Board of his project. His efforts have born fruit and he is the first, except for the Ghana government, who is authorised by the Cacao Board to sell cacao from the Suhum district to Felchlin Switzerland.
Main harvest
October – January
The cacao beans from Ghana are primarly blended with other cacao beans and used in Felchlin Switzerland Surfine and Classic couvertures.
Cru Suhum 40% flavour profile: the balanced cacao flavour leads to a harmonius play of fresh milk with a nuance of caramel. The finish begins with a pleasant malt note to be completed with a mild marzipan flavour.
Cru Suhum 60% flavour profile: the aroma experience of Cru Suhum couverture is distinguished by a harmonius cacao flavour enrobing the strong coffee note. The slow, traditional processing method allows the fruity, sweet pineapple flavour to develop. The finish is complimented through a nuance of dried pear encased in a sustained black tea flavour.
Chocolate Forever 11 Remarkable sustainability initiatives.
To adequately cocer the breadth and variety of vosions on sustainability in the Netherlands, it is necessary to expand the scope of this study to some remarkable, smaller-scale initiatives. These initiatives are remarkable because they move beyond securing supply and help to push the sustainability debate further. They take place in different segments of the chain and are not primarly driven by risks or regulation; instead they are the result of search for alternatives and smart ways of achieving sustainability in the cocoa chain. This section will also discuss how local circumstances can either stimulate or hinder these initiatives. It will not cover all of important sustainability cocoa initiatives in the Netherlands, but it will provide a good overview of key projects. A disinction will be made between the different initiatives of SMEs, conventional players, and other actors actively involved in the production of organic cocoa.
In this section just one important show a determined commitment and drive to manufacture the best product, and bear the responsibility of achieving sustainability in the cocoa chain.
The restoring economy of Original Beans.
Original Beans was founded on the idea of building a restoring economy on the basis of consumption. Because we define sustainability as leaving a situation as you have found it, it is not sufficient to produce as responsibly as possible because there is Always damage inficted. Therefore, we must restore the damage we do in the entire chain. (R.Nickels, OB 2010)
Original Beans is a small chocolate company, founded in 2008 on the idea that ‘what we consume we must replenish’. Although this seems like a simple idea, implementing it is a big challenge. Original Beans begins by using a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify the footprint of the entire chain from production until the package is discarded in the rubbish bin. This macroanalysis is used to analyse the environmental damage in terms of energy, water, and waste.
By employing the LCA method, Original Beans learned that the main environmental damage in the cocoa chain take place in three different phases: production, processing, and packaging. Cocoa production in origin countries goes hand-in-hand with land conversion: the resulting deforestation is a major contributor to CO2 emissions.Other pollutants are the pesticides and artificial fertilizer used during the production phase. As a carbon intensive process, also cocoa processing entails environmental costs. The packaging material used for wrapping chocolate is made from fossil fuels and is not biodegradable; the glue and inkt contain the toxic substances toluene and cadmium respectively. Currently, Original Beans is now using fully biodegradable foil for its chocolate bars (2012).
The LCA does provide insight in environmental issues but it does not directly address economic concerns. For viable economic options fundamental choises have be made on where you get cocoa from. Original Beans’ policy is to exclusively source from forest systems, while respecting the diversity of trees and making sure that cocoa production in the forest does not adversely affect the carrying capacity of the forest. This is achieved primarly by replanting trees without using pesticides or artificial fertilizers. For every bar of chocolate sold, local community farmers plant a tree that will support the forest – not just the rare cacao trees, but various species of trees that are neccesary for maintaining a healty biodiversity. Eventually the farmer is paid a fair price both for producing cocoa and for his work in these environmental services. New cocoa trees generate immediate revenu for the farmers, and the some of the other trees (e.g., teak) are an investment that will yield income in the future.
In the production phase, Original Beans works directly with cocoa farmers and is actively involved in organising them. Currently, Original Beans is exploring the possibility of sourcing Ecuadorian cocoa, produced by indigenous people living in the rain forest, which requires establishing a knowledge infrastructure. In this example, Original Beans works together with the Progreso fund and program, a leading network for hands-on business development assistance to smallholder farmers. In Congo, Original Beans buys EKO certfied cocoa from a local cocoa trader that works together with the Dutch Louis Bolk Institute (Agro Eco). Around 10.000 farmers are involved in this business. In Congo, Original Beans is supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), a federally owned organisation in Germany and the Dutch Foundation DOEN. The goal is to stimulate larger companies to source high quality cocoa from Congo.
In tackling the technical issues involved in processing and packaging, Original Beans works together with different partners, both Dutch and international. These partners are mainly companies that supply packaging or are involved in the processing of cocoa used by Original Beans. Thse are traditional companies that need to be additionally stimulated to change their customary business practices. As a client, Original Beans provides this incentive. According to Philipp Kaufmann, Their suppliers of packaging and cocoa products have become convinced about the potential of improving their business through more environmentally friendly practices, and are exploring the use of alternative sources of energy, for example, using energy from windmills or water turbines by a processor.
We should look at the result farmers get per effort instead of result per hectare.
next time: problems with knowledge application
Chocolate Forever 3 Chapter 2
Chapter 2 Knowledge in sustainable value chains.
Finca La Amistad Costa Rica
Already in antiquity, the philosopher Socrates questioned what knowledge is and how one should pursue it. Socrates devoted much of his efforts to defining words and concepts: his method was to pose questions. Like a three year-old child would repeat ‘why’ (e.g., Why is the sky blue?), Socrates repeated question after question until no further question could be asked. He claimed that there are two very different sorts of knowledge. One is the ordinary ‘trivial’ knowledge, which concern very specific (and ordinary) information, for example, the things we all know because we do them unconsciously. He claimed that having such knowledge does not give the holder any significant expertise or wisdom. The higher level knowledge could be described as definitional knowledge. In other words, if you can define a phenomenon it means that you understands ti, and this knowledge is superior to everyday ‘trivial’ knowledge.
Socrates’ contribution noted, Plato is usually credited as the founder of modern science and scientific thought. Plato asserted that a statement must meet three criteria to be considered knowledge: it must be justified (supported by evidence), true (in agreement with facts and reality), and believed. If one makes a claim, and another person questions it, then one would look for justification to convince the other person that his claim is true. Belief is knowledge if the belief is true and if the believer has a justification for believing it is true. Plato’s definition of knowledge necessitates that statements are justified by facts, which can be falsefied or validated. Today we refer to this systematic approach to knowledge simply as “science’. This approach also put scientific knowledge in another league from our common day-to-day knowledge and restricted the acces to this scientific league to only a fews select players: the scientists! As Sir Francis Bacon put it a century earlier, ‘knnowledge is power and those who know, rule the world’.
This brings us to the question how to pursue knowledge today. How is scientific knowledge related to what we knows from experience? How can we learn from practical knowledge? And if different kind of knowledge do co-exist, how can it be organised so it can be transferred from one type into the other? To put it in context of the topic of this publication, a cocoa grower could argue the following, ‘If I grow cocoa and obtain a good harvest, but cannot explain how I did it, then still you cannot say that I do not know how to grow cocoa.’
Finca La Amistad
Agricultural knowledge systems
Previously it was believed that knowledge could only be generated by undertaking a scientific research processes, in particular in regard to agriculture. Farmers were practising agriculture in the same way as during previous generations, and researchers believed that improvements could only be achieved through a transfer of knowledge from science to thes farmers. In order to modernise agriculture, science had to test and validate innovations, which were transferred through a system of extension provision to the communities of farmers. The farmers only needed to apply this developed knowledge in order to obtain higher yields and better economic returns. If the farmers continued to live in poverty, they were either not suitable for the job or not yet linked into the extension system, the preferred responce being to simply expand the extension system.
This dominant model created and developed a worldwide system of agriculture research and extension services taht is today well established. In Europe and the USA, this model produced high input agriculture, which was based on the latest scientific knowledge. Besides industrial inputs, this type of agriculture was also very capital intensive, resulting in self-reinforcing economies of scale on farms and the pursuit of continuous innovation. The farmer’ crop yields began to approache the levels projected in scientific models and obtained in research stations under ideal conditions. However, also the negative side effects of this system became increasingly apparent. The cost of the environmental damage -tolerated during the post-war decades of the twentieth century- wre increasingly being transferred from society to the farmers. A new paradigm -‘the poluter pays’- was increasingly cut into the profitability of high-input agriculture.
The reputation of Western agriculture declined, and responce the demands to reduce the huge public subsidies that supported the agricultural sector were being appeased. In the Netherlands -a country known for its sophisticated agricultural research and extension system- public services to farmers were rapidly being downsized. The system was ‘privatised’, implying that now farmers and agribusiness had to take care of their own extension services and that researchnhad to be sponsored by the agricultural sector.
Finca La Amistad Costa Rica
Meanwhile, the linear model between science and extension was being challenged by social scientist. They questioned the superiority of scientific knowledge, citing evidence that innovations can also emerge without science through human ingenuity and interaction. Does a community of Ghanian cocoa farmers not have the knowledge base for farming? Is indigenous and practice-based knowledge inferior to scientific knowledge? And, why is it that in spite of sophisticated scientific knowledge systems diversity in farms and farming practices persists? Are farmers just stubborn people or is there something else at play, which has equal value to scientific knowledge? A distinction can be made between different schools of thought. During the 1970s, Farming System research that referred to a farm as being more than the sum of its parts was developed. This approach considers the internal relationships between system components to define the level of its outputs: an insight that provided the space to acknowledge the farmers’ knowledge in effective handling of these interactions. Others focused more on the persistent diversity that exists in farling, whereby the dominant determining factor was the farmers’ knowledge and farm management skills. In this school of thought, different farm models can co-exist based on equally valuable rationale of human behaviour. In the Farming System school of though, science needs to study the rationale of these systems, but should continue developing knowledge based on an understanding what kind of knowledge required. The diversity school of though profoundly questions the role of scientific knowledge and emphasis the importance of social constructions and power relations. In this view, development does not come about through the application of scientific knowledge, but rather through social processes of empowerment and emancipation. Recently, approaches have emerged that do not try to define knowledge or engage in related rhetorical debates; rather they concentrate on design of effective modalities that can enhance the communication and knowledge exchanges between science, practitioners, and other stakeholders. Multi-stakeholders approaches and ‘innovation platforms’ are among these ways of creating and sharing knowledge and are yet to prove their value in terms of tangible results.
Finca La Amistad Costa Rica
Knowledge for sustainable value chains
As the previous sections demonstrated, there is a considerable research effort (with multiple approaches) which aims to provide stakeholders with knowledge that can be applied to stimulate development. But how do value chain stakeholders -notably the privat sector- secure an adequate knowledge base and access to new knowledge?…Pursuing sustainability in value chains presents several dilemmas regarding knowledge generation and knowledge sharing. First of all, a diverse set of actors -public, civil, and privat- must come to a joint agreement about their joint intentions and ambitions. These parties are not accustomend to working with each other and act from the position of their own languauge, corprate culture, and other particulartities. One actor may have had a negative ewperience with another actor, or there may be a considerable conflict of interests. This implies that the terms for realising knowledge exchanges need to be negotiated and moderated prior to any effort to jointly build knowledge. This touches on anther dilemma that could impede the smoothness of the knowledge exchange process. The privat sector pursues competitive advantages in order to better position itself in the market. As demonstrated above, knowledge is a strategic ingredient of the company’s profile; therefore, sharing knowledge broadly across the value chain could be considered unnatural behavior for a company. Before effective exchanges can be expected, the pursuit of chain wide sustainability must firts deal with this conflict.
A third dilemma concerns the kind of knowledge needed for pursuing sustainability value chains. What do actors pursue when they have sustainability in mind? Is a ‘Socrates dialogue’ required for defining what is understood by sustainability? For example, one value chain actor could stress the need for technological development (e.g., disease-tolerant cocoa hybrids) while another actor could insist on studying fair-pricing mechanisms and consumer behaviour. How is it defined, or – the even more difficult question- who defines the agenda for knowledge generation? When particular actors have a dominant position in a value chain, setting the agenda for knnowledge generation becomes a political process, which may undermine the collective goal to improve the sustainability across the value chain.
Finca La Amistad Costa Rica
Finally, there is a fourth dilemma: How can this useful knowledge be shared with larghe numbers of farmers, companies and their employees, and in the end consumers? Sharing knowledge on chain wide sustainability isseus requires a sound communication strategy. Reaching thousands of cocoa farmers (who may be illiterate) and informing even more Western consumers (who are overexposed to product information) is a monumental challenge that has no simple answer. Such a challenge requires a process of identifying good practice at each step of the value chain. What are effective approaches for involving larghe numbers of farmers in improving quantity and quality of production? For example, can we apply the Farmers’ Field School approach to improve the susainability of the production process, and at the same time involve all types of farmers (small and largeh, male and female)? What can be learned from other initiatives (e.g., UTZ CERTIFIED, the Rainforest Alliance, and Max Havelaar)?
Clearly the primiminary conclusion is that the pursuit of sustainability in cocoa value chains requires a well designed knowledge management straregy. Central to this strategy is value-chain-wide learning from own practice and relevant experiences in other chains or sustainability initiatives. Joint learning requires the involvement of all parties and their commitment to share knowledge. This may seem as unnatural at firts, but there is ample eveidence that is mutually profitable in the end: it enhances the generic profile of the value chain and its consumer products. After all, philosophic thought has emphasised for millennia that a ‘good reputation is worth more than money’ (Publilius Syrus,100 B.C.).
By clarifying their position as knoledge holders on sustainable cocoa chain development, the Dutch can play a more signifivant and recognisable role in the international discussions on this important matter. In addiction, such an analysis supports the design of a knowledge management strategy that adequately addresses the global character of the cocoa sector and the diversity of chain actors and chain supporters.
Source: Chocolate Forever Dutch knowledge on sustainable cocoa.
Chapter 2 Knowledge in sustainable value chains by Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters.(Director Development Policy and Practice, Royal Tropical Institute.
Pictures thanks to Juan Pablo Butchert, Nahua, Finca La Amistad.
WHY DO WE LOVE CHOCOLATE? 