For many small-scale cashew, coffee and cocoa farmers, learning about proper pruning, organic composting, post-harvest processing and storage, will be the first kind of formal education they’ve had access to. Co-ops serve as a hub for us to invest in training and resources, - affording farmers access to information, inputs, credit, and markets. Through a train-the-trainer model and year-round support, farmers are able produce more and better quality through the power of the collective. They become role-models or agents in the community, leading other farmers by example.
For the most vulnerable farmers, the ability for us to provide pre-financing to the co-ops allows them to buy what they need – seeds, fertilizer, tools - to maximize their harvests and income. And crucially, it means the co-op can pay them immediately for their crop on delivery.
However, to unlock this value, there is often a degree of ‘professionalising’ co-ops required and in other cases, a local buying structure has to be set up from scratch to enable direct sourcing. Today our local teams work with the AFPE (Agricultural and Food Products Experts) to assess cooperatives’ leadership skills and give targeted training and coaching.
Even in the origins we work in where cooperatives aren’t established as legal entities, our local teams work to group farmers to replicate the formal structure of a cooperative and the benefits it provides in extending training and capacity building initiatives.
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