Cocoa chain of Ghana
The cocoa chain starts with the cocoa farmers. They take care of the cocoa trees and during the dry season harvest the cocoa pods. Then the farmers break the pods open and let the beans inside dry in the sun. When dry, the cocoa beans are packed in bags and sold to errand-boy of some LBC. This errand-boy is most of the time family-related to the owner of the LBC, since this errand-boy has to travel with a lot of money towards the farmers. When the errand-boy is not family-related, it often happens that the errand-boy dissapears with money. But normally, the errand-boy provides the farmers with their well-earned money and the LBC of their cocoa. The cocoa is stored then until the LBC received enough to transport it on a larger truck towards Cocobod, Ghana Cocoa board. Cocobod is a governmental organization, which claims ‘to encourage and facilitate the production, processing and marketing of good quality cocoa, coffee and sheanut in all forms in the most efficient and cost effective manner, and maintain the best mutual industrial relation with its objectives’ [cocobod, 2015]. Sometimes it takes weeks before the LBCs get money from Cocobod, because Cocobod needs to check quality standards of the cocoa. Which makes the function of a LBC risky, since they have already paid the cocoa farmers, errand-boy and truck driver.
Then the cocoa is ready to leave Ghana, which is going to be transported by sea- or airstransport towards the factories. The factories clean, sort, roast, crack and winnow the beans to make a sort of very bitter cocoa paste. Then in the same factory or another one, the cocoa paste is pressed to separate the different substances of the cocoa bean. Which can be transformed into cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The
different substances are mixed together in different proportions, to create the flavour of the chocolate of the specific brand, in this case Mars. Different ingredients are added, like nuts and caramel, to make the chocolate bar as everyone expects it to be. The bar is shipped to the store to be sold to the costumers. At the end the price the costumer pays is sometimes 100 times more then the cocoa farmer gets for it.
Farmerline in this chain
Farmerline wants to make the lives of cocoa farmers easier and more efficient. In order to execute this ‘mission’, they have to work together with all the reachable institutions that are involved in this cocoa chain. They have contact with the farmers, LBCs and Cocobod, which also include the government. More specific information about this stakeholder could be read in chapter 2 ‘Farmerline’.
TAHMO in this chain
TAHMO is a global organisation, which focuses on farmers in general. They setup companies, like Farmerline, to take care of the rest of the chain. Farmerline is an example of such a company in Ghana, but this is done in different countries as well. TAHMO is only active in the farmers-part of this chain at this moment. More specific information about this stakeholder could be read in chapter 1 ‘Tahmo’.
Our project in this chain
We will conduct our project only in the beginning of this chain, from the cocoa farmers towards the LBCs. To know if all the research, we did so far, is veracious we will also talk to other people in this chain.This to get a clearer image of the cocoa chain of Ghana. We (Selcuk, Evelien en Sjoerd) are together stakeholder as well. We work together with Farmeline and TAHMO on our project, that we created with help of Farmerline and TAHMO.
Stakeholders inside of this chain
Cocoa farmers
There are 2,5 million cocoa farmers in Ghana. There are two different and more information about this stakeholder could be read in chapter 1 ‘Cocoa industry’.
Errand-boy
The errand-boy is working for the LBCs, so he/she can make some money. The relation between the errand-boy and the LBC is based on trust, that is why mostly this boy is family related to the owner of the LBC. He does do not care about the farmer itself, it only transports the cocoa beans towards the LBC and pays the farmers. Since the prices are fixed, the farmer knows what he will get.
LBCs
The job of the LBC, in the case of the visualisation Olam Group, is as mentioned before kind of risky. Lost of money is going trough these companies and they have to pay several institutions far before they will get their benefit of trading the cocoa. Mostly they trade money against cocoa beans with their partners.
Cocobod
Cocobod is a governmental company, which checks the quality of the all the cocoa beans delivered by the LBCs. They collect all the cocoa beans, which means they are in contact with all LBCs of Ghana. They also sell the cocoa beans to chocolate manufacturers and other companies all over the world. They aim that their function is to be a centre for production, research, extension, internal and external marketing and quality control. [Cocobod, 2015]
Stakeholders outside of this chain
GMET
Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMET) is Ghana’s national weather provider. It is the same thing as the KNMI for the Netherlands. They measure weather aspects on several stops in the country and base their weather expectations of the upcoming days upon these aspects. The weather expectations are presented in the daily news on television. This sending time on the television is mostly sponsored, with leads to income for GMET. The forecast of GMET is based on a couple of measuring stations, but GMET is not able to collect detailed information compared to TAHMO. This could be an advantage of TAHMO towards GMET. TAHMO will need GMET to make the information more valuable, because GMET needs to valide end approve forecast. GMET is obviously wants some money for providing their name.
Valorisation TU Delft, Ellen van Andel
Ellen van Andel is part of the valorisation team of the Delft University of Technology. She has managed to initiate the opportunity for three minor students to be part and assist in the TAHMO project. The TAHMO project is active over the whole continent of Africa, but the students will take part in the activities in Ghana. Ellen arranged to test business models in Ghana in favour of TAHMO and to help Farmerline to become a profitable company. On top of this, she mapped all the stakeholders in Ghana involved with TAHMO and did research on the wishes of the cocoa farmers.
Schools
The Ghanaian school are responsible for the maintenance of the TAHMO weather stations, which are placed at schools. The local science teacher is able to repair the their needs
station when it is broken, and is able to teach the students about it at the same time. Students will be able to learn something about climate change and potentially the students will get excited to become a cocoa farmers after all.
TU Delft, Nick van de Giessen + Frank Annor
Nick van de Giesen is the co-director of the TAHMO project. He is a professor at the Delft University of Technology at the faculty Civil Engineering. He holds the Chair of Water Resources Management. Together with Frank Annor they play a key role in laying the roadmap of TAHMO. Frank is responsible for the West-African region TAHMO is active in. He is a doctoral scientist at TU Delft. His PhD research concerns evaporation and mapping of lakes in Northern Ghana. (TAHMO, 2015)
Radio stations
The radio stations are included as stakeholders afterwards we defined our project definition. Since we want to spread general information over the radio towards farmers and other radio listeners. For the radio stations the forecast by TAHMO could be a valuable addition to their program, since they deliver for sure good quality information. However, this is something that the owners of the radio stations need to be convinced of. Or maybe they will want some money for it. This is not clear yet, since we did not have a chance to contact them.