Cocoa farmers in the Fanteakwa District would enjoy an additional income on the sale of their cocoa from the next cocoa season for satisfying the conditions and standards of fair-trade.

Fair-trade is a certification programme that ensures that farmers have better returns on their efforts through the payment of premiums on the sale of their produce.

Through the intervention of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), cocoa farmers in Fanteakwa District were able to satisfy the audit of fair-trade, which dealt with issues of national interest.

The standards for the audit included usage of chemicals and their disposal for environmental conservation, good farm practices resulting in high yields and child labour on cocoa farms.

This came out when a team of representatives from Kraft Foods, (mother company of Cadbury), from the UK and Switzerland and the Country Director of CCP paid a working visit to some of the communities in Fanteakwa and West Akyem Districts.

The team, among other things, was to monitor and assess situations of the cocoa farmers’ unions under the CCP in the communities who had applied to become fair-trade certified unions, as well as to show the representatives of Kraft Foods conditions of cocoa farmers in the cocoa growing areas.

The CCP is a project of Cadbury to provide better living conditions to cocoa farmers, their children and their communities to ensure that through their sustainable intervention, cocoa production would be guaranteed for many years to come.

It is currently operating in 208 communities in seven districts and four regions across the country.

As part of the intervention, CCPP had distributed spraying machines and other inputs to cocoa farmers, solar lanterns to each household of its 209 communities.

It also distributed over 10,000 bicycles to children of cocoa farmers who walk more than three kilometers to school each day.

Mrs. Yaa Peprah Amekudzi, Country Director of CCP, who led the team, assured the farmers of continuous partnership between them and Cadbury, since they needed each other for their sustenance.

Mr. David Preece and Mr. Stuart Macdonald from Kraft Foods UK and Switzerland respectively, expressed their satisfaction at the improvement of cocoa farming in Ghana through CCP and assured of long partnership between the farmers and the Kraft Foods.