THE STORY OF FAUSTINA ABEROR: WHEN FARMERS ARE NO LONGER ON THE LOSING END.

Faustina Aberor is the President of the Brong Ahafo Women Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Central Union (BAWCOF) in Ghana. The cooperative consists of seven thousand members – all women cocoa farmers. In an interview for the recently published Power of Voices Special by the journalistic platform Vice Versa, Faustina tells her story.

Establishing a women’s cocoa cooperative

“When you are with a group of cocoa farmers, one thing immediately stands out: the men do the talking while the women are silent, and they rarely contribute ideas. This is culturally determined. In some areas of Ghana, women do not speak when men are present, so if you want to help women here to do their work even better, you have to bring them together in a separate cooperative—and this is exactly what we did.

Moreover, we realised that women do most of the work, from planting to harvesting. But when it comes to selling the beans and negotiating, the woman disappears and is not seen again. This needed to change. Therefore, we encourage women to register officially as co-owners of their family farms.

A better livelihood for the new generation of farmers

My parents, like so many others here, were also cocoa farmers. They were struggling and could barely keep their heads above water. That, too, contributed to my vision that it is necessary to ensure that farmers can deliver and conduct business in a better way so things can change from how they used to do things.

So now we are helping farmers realise that they are entrepreneurs running a business, and should no longer fiddle around. If your parents used to get one bag of beans from a hectare of cocoa trees, I do not expect you to get the same.

We support farmers through a business school and teach them how to increase production. We guide them through various educational processes so they do not end up like their parents. If their parents, for instance, got one bag per hectare, we expect them to get 10 to 12.

Many of our members achieve that. Introducing a few interventions like pruning and hand pollination makes a huge difference. We used to rely solely on bees to get the fruit pollinated, but with human intervention, you can make great strides.

To become a member of our cooperative, you must meet certain conditions. You have to be a cocoa farmer and a woman. Additionally, you should have the motivation to work as a farmer, be open to our interventions, and be passionate about making a difference.

Richer than the government 

We aspire for you to live a life distinct from your parents and grandparents. Most importantly, we aim to dispel the belief that cocoa farmers are impoverished. I often affirm to new members that they are prosperous. If a farmer’s spouse insists that she is poor, I engage with her and provide calculations to show her that she is, in fact, a wealthy woman.

‘How many hectares of land do you have?’ I ask and tell her she is supposed to have 435 trees on one hectare; one tree gives an average of 50 pods. After calculating how many bags of cocoa she should get for one, two, or five hectares, I multiply that by the price per bag.

This is when I tell them that they are wealthier than the Ghanaian government, which usually elicits a hearty laugh from them.

‘Meanwhile, you are telling me you have no money,’ I then admonish them. It is a matter of turning your mindset around. I believe in the message of Romans 12 in the Bible: true change comes from a transformation of the mind. In Ghana, cocoa farmers are prosperous yet view themselves as poor. Despite their wealth, they are reluctant to take steps towards greater prosperity.

Tackling land rights with a women’s cooperative 

When we set up a special cooperative for women, it was exciting to see the men’s reaction, but it was not too bad. Most men find that it is also to their advantage. I don’t think there is anyone, including men, who wants their children to go to bed hungry.

We did not bring it as something that could undermine men’s authority or compete with male cocoa farmers. We said we would do something to enable women to help their husbands and the household. During the meetings with men and women, I also always explain that it is not a competition.

One issue we are working on specifically within the RECLAIM Sustainability! Programme is that of land rights. Although families work together as cocoa farmers, the land is usually in the husband’s name—if he dies, the land does not formally go to his wife if she is not an official co-owner of it.

The family of the deceased husband often takes over everything, and the wife and their children are left empty-handed. Unfortunately, this is very common in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. We encourage the women to register and convince the men to support them. Fortunately, most are open to it and increasingly, more women are getting their land titles, so they own the farm and the land together.

Motivating the youth to become cocoa farmers

I like seeing young people seriously considering becoming cocoa farmers again. For a very long time, they did not because they thought it was something for losers—they envisioned the life of their parents, who did not even have a bicycle, let alone a car.

‘Why should I waste my time farming too,’ they thought. ‘No, let me go to the city, where I will have a better life.’

Now you see that mentality changing. The Ghana Cocoa Board is also doing a lot of activities in that area. For instance, it has instituted an award for the most promising young cocoa farmer and the most enterprising woman cocoa farmer.

Farmers are now diversifying with cocoa and discovering its versatility, and I heartily encourage that. Aside from chocolate, which we all enjoy, cocoa has many other byproducts: spirits, fertilizer, and soap. A group of members is working on turning it into spreads—people are increasingly seeing more possibilities.

I enjoy this work every day. It is not an office job, so I am out in the fresh air a lot, and the meetings with women farmers are inspiring. I also have my piece of land, on which I farm cocoa, which is wonderful. This is not a job, but pure passion: I love what I do.”

Faustina’s story was originally published in Dutch in Vice Versa’s Power of Voices magazine special, featuring the work of various partnerships under Power of Voices, such as RECLAIM Sustainability!

Edited by Pius Okore.