Linking Small-Holder Farmers to International Markets
Since the beginning of 2014, ACA has been collaborating with USAID to implement a program to train small-scale farmers in three West African countries – Nigeria, Benin, and Côte d’Ivoire – on best practices, and subsequently linking them to local processors. This program complies with USAID’s Toward Inclusive Markets Everywhere Annual Program Statement (TIME APS), which broadly focuses on improving quality and meeting international standards in the cashew sector.
In December 2014, Cajou des Savanes (CASA), a medium-sized processor located in Bouake, Côte d’Ivoire, became the third processing factory to sign an MoU with ACA to participate in the USAID TIME project activities (the first being FoodPro in Nigeria and the second being Afokantan in Benin). As a partner in this project, CASA has committed to source raw cashew nuts from local farmer cooperatives, the target beneficiaries of the trainings.
From February 10-12, 2015, ACA’s Agronomist, Mohamed Salifou traveled to Bouake to facilitate a training-of-trainers workshop. Ten extension officers were selected to participate in this workshop and are charged with providing the skills and knowledge learned to 500 farmers each. The trainings are in good agricultural practices and harvest/post-harvest handling techniques, including strategies for proper farm management and maintenance, cashew quality calculations, and more.
By the end of the training, the extension officers indicated that they felt prepared to replicate the trainings in their respective communities. They visited the CASA facility in order to better understand the importance of linking educated, high quality-producing cashew farmers to local factories.
Once the farmers have been given proper training, it is expected that the cashews they produce will be much higher quality than in previous seasons. Since these farmers also have the market linkage with CASA, they will gain access to a wider variety of markets and will earn greater bargaining power.
