Olam Cocoa hosts farmers to commemorate 34th National Farmers’ Day

Olam Cocoa Processing Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of Olam Ghana, a leading supply chain manager of agri-products and one of Ghana’s biggest cocoa buying agencies, hosted cocoa farmers at its cocoa processing facility in Kumasi as part of celebrations marking this year’s National Farmers Day.

Fifty cocoa farmers (ambassadors) including 32 women from 25 communities in the Western Region visited the company’s processing factory at Kaase, in Kumasi, to be given ‘a glimpse’ of how their farm produce is transformed into cocoa liquor.

After a guided tour of the facility, the farmers were taken through a general health screening schedule and given a series of presentations on good agricultural practices.

The farmers were highly impressed and said they would share what they had witnessed at the factory with their fellow cocoa growers back home and exchanged experiences and ideas during an open forum session.

Madam Yaa Fosua, a cocoa farmer from Punikrom, who has observed her yields improve as a result of farm rehabilitation in the last few years said was important for farmers to listen and trust advice from extension officers, disclosing that when she was first approached by Olam extension officers and advised to cut down and rehabilitate her four-acre unproductive farm, she was highly sceptical.

“It was difficult to believe that the trees that had fed me for the past 50 years could no longer support me and my family. I was simply scared of the unknown. But today, I am proud to say, that I am an ambassador for cocoa rehabilitation. My farm was rehabilitated in 2015, and since October 2016 to date, I have harvested over 8,700 pods which fetches me no less than seven and a half bags”, Madam Fosua disclosed.

Mr. John Scott Donkoh, General Manager of the Facility, said after the tour of the plant that Olam’s purpose of ‘re-imaging Global Agriculture’ revolves around the key objective of putting farms and farming communities back at the heart of the food and produce system.

“This objective ties in perfectly with the philosophy behind the National Farmers’ Days and underscores the closeness of the relationship that Olam has with farmers,” Mr. Scott, said

Through its flagship sustainability initiative – the Olam Livelihood Charter (OLC), Olam Ghana aims to tackle economic, environmental and social challenges through business management, women empowerment, reducing child labour and building resilience to climate change.

Established in 1998, Olam was the first global trading house to be licensed to participate in the internal marketing of Cocoa in Ghana and currently sources beans from about 120,000 dedicated farmers

The Olam Cocoa Processing factory is a fully automated state-of-the-art facility which has been operating since 2009 with a bean warehouse capacity of 30,000 MT and is run by a team of 114 highly trained employees and some 150 contract staff. The plant produces three distinct varieties of cocoa liquor recipes, the key ingredient in the manufacture of cocoa.