Liberia – Livelihood Improvement for Farming Enterprises (LIFE)

Working with Smallholder Cocoa Farmers to Increase Their Incomes

Cocoa has been cultivated in Liberia since the early 1900s and has been the second most important commercial crop after rubber. During the recent civil war, many cocoa farmers abandoned their farms and now need assistance re-establishing production. Production problems include poor planting practices; a lack of good planting material; pest and disease infestation; poor crop husbandry, agroforestry and post-harvest handling practices; and a lack of access to inputs and credit.

To address the challenges faced by Liberian smallholder cocoa farmers, ACDI/VOCA implements the 2½ year, $3.5 million Livelihood Improvement for Farming Enterprises (LIFE) project, funded by USDA. LIFE is part of the Sustainable Cocoa Enterprise Solutions for Smallholders (SUCCESS) Alliance program, which is a global public-private partnership consisting of USAID, USDA, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), Mars, Inc., local partners and ACDI/VOCA. In Liberia, ACDI/VOCA and its partner, Sustainable Tree Crop Program (STCP), work to address constraints in the cocoa value chain and mitigate the risk to smallholders’ livelihoods by encouraging the diversification of their revenue sources. LIFE improves the livelihoods of 5,600 smallholder farmers in Bong, Nimba and Lofa counties through the following program activities:

• farmer training: training smallholder farmers in cocoa production, crop diversification, pest management, post-harvest handling, marketing and ACDI/VOCA’s signature Farming as a Business (FaaB) curriculum
• nursery, seedling production and tree rehabilitation: supporting the production and distribution of cocoa seedlings through the establishment of nurseries and rehabilitation of cocoa trees
• smallholder organization and increased market access: strengthening farmer cooperatives and organizations to function as profitable commercial enterprises, introducing farmer organization concepts to individual farmers with the objective of forming new farmer groups, and improving farmers’ access to markets
• access to credit: promoting improved credit access for cocoa farmers by training them in requirements and farmer responsibilities and providing assistance to lending institutions

Since LIFE’s start in February, the project has

• trained 18 facilitators and approximately 1,340 farmers in Bong and Lofa counties in cocoa production, crop diversification, pest management, post-harvest handling, marketing and FaaB
• identified and begun strengthening five preexisting farmer cooperatives/organizations in Bong, Nimba and Lofa counties
• facilitated the formation of 10 new farmer organizations, representing about 3,500 cocoa farmers, in Bong, Nimba and Lofa counties
• provided organizational training to the membership of the 10 new farmer organizations
• improved and facilitated farmers’ access to and knowledge of cocoa and other markets to ensure they have outlets for their produce and receive fair prices
• promoted improved credit access for cocoa farmers by training them in financial institutions’ loan application requirements and farmer repayment responsibilities
• worked with six lending/financial institutions (ECOBANK, Liberian Bank for Development & Investment, International Bank, Access Bank, Liberian Enterprise Development Finance Company and Liberty Finance) to facilitate the development of credit schemes that could provide appropriate credit opportunities to LIFE cocoa farmers and their organizations
• spearheaded the development of a cocoa sector technical working group under the auspices of the Liberian Ministry of Agriculture to coordinate the activities of different NGOs working in the sector, prevent duplication of efforts and use comparative advantage to avoid wasting valuable donor resources.

For more information contact Katie Skaar at kskaar@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 11/08

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