Facing a challenging climate, a 10% production loss, and an environment where only 14% of people had access to finance—cocoa farmers in Ghana were able to triple their income, from $72 to $239. How did they do it? By focusing on financial literacy, improved agriculture, and women’s empowerment.
With funding from Cargill, Inc, CARE worked with 6,454 farmers in Ghana as part of the global partnership with Cargill from 2013-2016.
What did we accomplish?
- Higher Incomes: Farmers’ income went up from $72 to $239.
- Better climate resilience: Farmers in PROCOCO faced a 10% reduction loss due to climate conditions—but the rest of Ghana saw a 19% production loss over the same time.
- More value-add in products: The number of farmers who took steps to improve the value of their crops went from 32% to 52%.
- 5 fold-increase in access to finance: In 2013, only 14% of farmers had access to finance, and by 2016, 79% of them did.
- Families are better fed: The number of weeks families spent without enough food every year went down by 2 weeks.
- Better savings: Only 1.9% of farmers saved to improve their business in 2013, and by 2016, 16% of them did. That’s 8 times the original number.
- Less child labor: The number of children involved in labor was nearly cut in half—from 16% at baseline to 9% at endline.
How did we get there?
- More than doubled access to extension: The number of people with access to quality extension went from 31% to 76% of farmers. Partly this was as a result of 78 local cocoa trainers, and partly because the program worked with the government to expand their extension corps by 35%.
- Double access to inputs: 65% of farmers could access inputs at endline, up from 33% at baseline, largely as a result of the increased reach of extension agents.
- VSLA: The project helped create 89 VSLAs which saved more than $112,160 and made more than $73,000 in loans.
- Focus on financial literacy: Part of the focus on farmer training was on financial literacy, and financial literacy scores went from 39% to 50% over the life of the project.
- Work with schools: PROCOCO worked with 159 PTAs to spread messages about child labor, nutrition, and women’s empowerment.