Gaining Momentum in Empowering Cashew Farmers
In partnership with Self Help Africa, ACA is addressing issues of gender equality and good agricultural practices through the "Empower Women Cashew Farmers" project in Ghana and Kenya. This project, which started in June 2015 and is funded by the Walmart Foundation, aims to increase the income of smallholder households by training farmers on good farming practices. To ensure that the African market will be the final beneficiary of the intervention, the project will simultaneously train farmers and create linkages between farmer communities and processing facilities. The project focuses specifically on empowering women in the cashew value chain through further training on livelihood diversification.
Coming up on almost one year of implementation, ACA has engaged directly with the beneficiary communities to further progress and to understand key challenges. From April 16-21st, an ACA team comprised of the MD and other officers traveled to Kenya's Kilifi County to undertake a monitoring visit of the Walmart funded project. In the company of seven representatives from the implementing partners, Self-Help Africa and Ustadi Foundation, the ACA team visited three farmer groups in Kilifi North and Malindi Sub Counties. Together with the hosts, the team interacted with the groups on issues related to good agronomic practices, pricing and sale of raw cashew nuts, market linkages, access to land, access to credit as well as the challenges that they face. Interviews with beneficiaries highlighted the positive effects that the project has already had on the capacity of local stakeholders to improve cashew production and business.
In Ghana, ACA held a training workshop from April 13-15 in order to implement the key aspect of market information systems (MIS). The focus of this training was to establish linkages between the farmers and ACA’s registered cashew processing factories in Ghana. It sought to increase the capacity for farmers to understand MIS principles, which will have widespread benefits for the value chain as a whole in the long-term as farmers have more agency. During the training, participants were taught cashew value chain management skills relating to RCN commercialization, sourcing and interpretation of the market trends in order to reduce risks in market decision-making during the cashew season. During group work, the participants took on the role of recipients of market information services and subsequently use the guide to determine the periods to either sell their RCN or withhold their cashew.
In Ghana, ACA has partnered with Mim Cashew and Agricultural Products Ltd. to participate in a market information sharing system with farmer groups. The relationships formed will be the basis of market linkages between the farmers and the international marker and allow for sustainable, competitive local industries. ACA will use an innovative supply chain management tool to facilitate direct linkages between processors and farming communities via financial institutions. The system aims to secure sound transactions between farmers and processors, allows farmers to access the banking system and strengthens commercial linkages between cashew processors and farmers.
By the end of this project in 2017, ACA aims to contribute to sustainable improvements in the livelihood of 35,000 smallholder farmers in Ghana and Kenya who are currently engaged in cashew farming. By empowering women farmers and contributing to the diversification of livelihoods, ACA is confident that the project will create sustainable and long-lasting impact in the farming communities.
