Cocoa yields in Togo are declining due to ageing farms and planting new seedlings cost farmers time and money, prompting Ali Kodzovi and his fellow cooperative members to establish a nursery.
Category Archives: Stories
Back to School
Mary Owusu and Elizabeth Atideka, cocoa farmers in Ghana, faced challenges in educating their children due to financial constraints. Since joining Nestlé’s Income Accelerator Program, they received support that enabled their children to attend school regularly.
One Meal That Can Change Everything
In Côte d’Ivoire, many primary schools lack canteens, but with the support of the CLEF Coalition efforts are underway to prioritise school meals, with a target of 60% of children receiving balanced meals for 80 days by 2030.
Boosting Yields and Diversifying Incomes
Tata Célestine has improved her coffee yields by adopting sustainable practices and diversified her income by farming cassava.
Turning Rural Women into Entrepreneurs
Loans from Village Saving and Loan Associations can be used to fund ventures in farming or other businesses, or to finance school fees — all with the aim of diversifying the incomes of women.
Enhancing Cocoa Sustainability
Last year, Vanessa Schielke, a student at the Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences completed her thesis on Sustainable Value Chains. Her research focused on the socio-economic and environmental factors that influence smallholders’ decision to adopt agroforestry practices. As a case study, she travelled to Ghana’s Ashanti region to analyse Beyond Bean’s agroforestry programmes and how they impact smallholder farmers. Vanessa has now completed her studies and joined Beyond Beans as an intern! To help us learn from her research, Vanessa has written an article explaining her findings, including the effectiveness of our agroforestry programmes and where improvements can be made.
A Very Short History of Cocoa
Understanding the history of cocoa is vital for not only shedding light on how cocoa came to be the commodity it is today, but also for comprehending the complex web of social, economic, and political circumstances which make designing and implementing sustainability projects in cocoa ever more complicated.
Saving Succès-fully: How VSLAs are Strengthening Women’s Economic Cooperation
The Succès Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) group was formed in 2019 in the village of Aboudé, Côte d’Ivoire. Every Sunday, forty women meet in the BECIDA cooperative director’s garden to pool their savings and take out loans. During these meetings, they share personal experiences and offer each other advice and…
Midjo: Economic Justice for Coffee Farming Women and Preventing Child Labour in Togo
Midjo supports 1,500 cocoa and coffee farmers in Togo, aiming to improve their livelihoods, prevent child labour through addressing some underlying drivers of poverty, empower women in coffee production and increase income diversification.
From Slash-and-Burn to Sustainable: How Biochar is Changing Cocoa Farming in Côte d’Ivoire
ETG | Beyond Beans is preparing to run pilot projects to test the applicability of biochar in live field sites. Our ultimate goal is to expand this project to circularise coffee projects in Uganda, cashew projects in Mozambique, and cocoa projects in Côte d’Ivoire, thereby reducing waste, providing carbon insetting, and minimising the environmental impact of the agricultural sector.