Telcar Cocoa Ltd. and partner, Cargil Cocoa & Chocolate have done it again. A total of 2 Billion Francs worth of premiums have been paid out to 51.000 cocoa farmers in the country. The well attended event took place at Hilton Hotel presided over by the minister of Agriculture and helped to symbolically present the giant check to the beneficiaries. The latter came from parts of the country including the Centre, Southwest and South regions, beaming with smiles and testifying of their changing agricultural practices and way of life – thanks to Telcar Cocoa’s sustainable farm programme and training.
The Chief Executive officer of Telcar Cocoa Ltd, Kate Kany-Tomedi Fotso highlighted the social responsibility of her company which is being seriously implemented. This policy ensures that farmers reap good profits from healthy agricultural practices and transparent supply chain.
Of course, there are figures to illustrate the improvements in the wellbeing of the communities in terms of hygiene and nutrition as well as health. For example, Telca has constructed up to 47 access points in 47 communities with more than 500.000 families benefiting from water wells.
The education of kids has also been improved with a total of 1415 less privileged and academically bright children benefiting from scholarship schemes. However, there have been some challenges, taking care of farmers in the crisis region as CEO Kate told journalists shortly after the ceremony.
“It has not been easy, but there again we want to encourage the farmers who because of all the work we’ve done with them over the years, they stayed glued on to their farms and continued to carry out the good agricultural practices which they did and still tried to channel their produce through their farmers association; and the cooperative in which they were already registered throughout the period.
That is this and throughout the crisis so they have been able to still benefit. For those of them who have been able to still access their farms they are still able to benefit from all what the sustainability development program which we have brought to them.”
For the 2 billion that is being given down to farmers, very substantial amounts will triple down to the individual cooperatives. Kate remarked: “Well the 2 billion is all for the farmers. Some of them opted in view of the difficulties, to receive it as inputs or chemical products to treat their farms because of the difficulties and some of them are receiving cash.”
Cargil Promise
Meanwhile, Cargill Managing Director Lionel Soulard was asked what the perspective of his involvement in the amelioration of the cocoa value chain. Said he:
“Basically, we want to create value throughout the supply chain so it goes obviously with the payments of premium, with the increase of productivity. You heard the testimonies where the farmers doubled or even tripled their yields. The diversification of revenues through empowerment of women and again creating value for our customers by re-enforcing the confidence with the mapping of our farms.”
About the Criteria Choosing beneficiary Cooperatives
Lionel Soulard Said: “We have chosen cooperatives in the areas in which we operate and this cooperatives, we train them to be able to improve on their capacity, to be able to manage their farmers and the farmers cooperatives and their business for it to run smoothly so that they can get the best of grouping their selves together.
To empower them in their capacity to negotiate prices and to be able to make themselves accessible to financial institutions that can help them. To be able to have more inputs and hence improve on their production.”
To the minister of Agriculture, it was thumps up for Telcar Cocoa Ltd and partner for initiating the innovative approach to sustainable cocoa cultivation.
“I am very delighted to celebrate this programme which tackles some challenges in cocoa production. This programme has been improving the quality of cocoa production. It has been helping the farmers to apply good practices in agriculture in order to have more income and high yields in the planation. I appreciate this initiative.”