Farmer field school dampens child labour in cocoa production

Low technical knowledge and access to credit for farm expansion are major challenges to higher cocoa production in Ghana, acknowledged Godwin Affoh, a farmer in the Assin North District of the Central region.

According to him, the low acreage, resulting from poor farming practices, affects farmers’ standard of living, with the temptation to use their children as farm hands.

“If we increase our productivity, we’ll also have the opportunity to put our children in school, so that in the long run we can eliminate child labour in cocoa production,” he stated.

The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), in partnership with other institutions, has been targeting farmers like Godwin with activities to eliminate the worst forms of child labour in cocoa production.

After a decade of interventions in cocoa producing communities, the Initiative is now focusing on empowering cocoa farmers to employ adult labourers on their farms, through community action plans and farmer field schools.

“The cocoa farmer field school is going to help the farmers improve their yield and when their yield is improved, they’re going to get more income and it’s expected that they use the income to hire more adult labourers so that they’ll not use the children on the cocoa farms,” said Prince Gyamfi, Programme Associate with ICI.

The farmer field school involves training in good agronomic practices and good business practices – including record keeping and financial management.

Farmers are also schooled on the effects of using children in cocoa farms instead of studying in school as well as organizing themselves in groups to access financial facility.

“We have learnt a lot about cocoa production, like how to increase our productivity through application of fertilizer and rational use of chemicals that will boost our productivity,” stated Godwin.

 

Training Consultant, Efo Sylvanus Agordorku, also observed “farmers are now planting hybrid seeds from the seed gardens and applying the recommended rates of fertilizer. People are also looking at planting trees in their cocoa farms to provide temporal and permanent shades for the cocoa seedlings that they are planting.”

The farmer field school trained 73 cocoa farmers and extension agents in 2013 – they in turn trained an additional 1,745 farmers to apply the skills and knowledge on their cocoa farms.

The ICI is targeting 65 additional farmers in 2014.

Prince Gyamfi is excited at Ghana’s current favourable image among Western cocoa consumer countries in accessing traceable cocoa from the country.

He however believes access to schools in every cocoa growing community would encourage farmers to place their wards in school and not engage them on farms.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh