Ecuador – SUCCESS Alliance

Promoting increased cocoa production for Ecuadorian farmers

Ecuador is believed to be the birthplace of cocoa and has a long and illustrious history of cocoa production. Ecuador exports to the main cocoa-processing and -consuming countries of the world, and has close to 100,000 smallholder cocoa farmers making up approximately 85-90 percent of its total cocoa production. However, cocoa production in Ecuador has been on the decline in recent years due to disease and aging, poorly maintained trees. Poor post-harvest handling and processing has resulted in low-quality cocoa, and the cocoa marketing chain is hampered by a lack of support mechanisms for small producers.

Recognizing the need to provide technical assistance to Ecuadorian cocoa producers, the USDA awarded ACDI/VOCA a 4-year, $5 million Food for Progress project to promote increased cocoa production through farmer training, tree rehabilitation and the development and strengthening of farmer associations. ACDI/VOCA, USDA and the World Cocoa Foundation have partnered to form the SUCCESS Alliance project in Ecuador as part of a global network of ACDI/VOCA-supported SUCCESS Alliance projects. The project began in 2004; in February 2008 ACDI/VOCA received an additional $440,000 from USDA to continue the highly successful program until 2009.

The target regions for this project are in western and central Ecuador in the provinces of Guayas, Manabi, Los Rios and Esmeraldas, home to the majority of Ecuador’s smallholder cocoa producers. Most cocoa farmers in these regions have cocoa trees that, before exposure to the project, produce less than half of their potential. Through the SUCCESS Alliance, ACDI/VOCA and its local partners implement farmer field school (FFS) training for more than 21,000 cocoa producers to enable them to increase cocoa production through improved disease control, crop husbandry and post-harvest processing techniques. The project has also established and expanded existing cocoa tree nurseries in order to replace the older, unproductive trees found on most smallholder farms. During the life of the project, farmers will plant and maintain 1 million new cocoa trees, and ACDI/VOCA and its partners will strengthen or develop 7 cocoa marketing associations.

Project participants are experienced smallholder cocoa farmers with a demonstrated willingness to participate in the entire training program. Since most of the farms are family-run, women are also selected for technical assistance. The fifth and final cycle of FFS training was completed in December 2007 and the project has, to date, trained a total of 21,710 smallholder cocao farmers through 868 FFSs, well over the project’s intended objective.

Through the program, FFS graduates organize farmer field days to share best practices. Efforts are underway to link farmers to principal buyers in order to shorten the market chain to the benefit of smallholder farmers. Associations that already focus on cocoa production receive priority for training. The project has awarded several grants to farmers’ associations to support training in resource management, commercialization of cocoa, the establishment of tree nurseries, and ACDI/VOCA’s signature Farming as a Business curriculum.

In addition to providing technical training assistance, ACDI/VOCA implements a farmer-driven research project with the national cocoa research station, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP), to test the efficacy of biocontrol agents against the primary diseases that affect cocoa production in Ecuador. This effort builds on years of international research conducted by various research stations and is supported by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. A technical team made up of SUCCESS Alliance, INIAP, and producers from the receiving associations planted 16 clonal gardens. Forty-seven smallholders from participating associations were trained to ensure that the clonal gardens are managed properly. An agreement with the research station called for the installation of a 60,000-plant-capacity nursery at the station, which has benefitted by the nursery now having the capacity to produce more than 100,000 plants annually since its first year of production in 2007.

The additional funding awarded in February 2008 will increase the productivity of cocoa farms by supporting an exchange of labor and experience among producers. It will also support the training of smallholder producers in association organization, cocoa quality, post-harvest management and marketing. SUCCESS Alliance will continue in the Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi and Esmeraldas provinces as well as in the additional nearby zones of Pichincha, Bolivar, Cotopaxi, Cabar, Azuay and el Oro. The main objectives of these activities are to

• train 5,000 smallholder producers
• strengthen 32 farmer associations
• strengthen the knowledge of 5,000 FFS graduates
• monitor 16 clonal gardens and 27 nurseries
• market and work with a minimum of 8 organized groups to establish stable commercial relations with at least 4 cocoa buyers

The SUCCESS Alliance Ecuador project will be active until January 2009. Following project completion, the Ecuadorian beneficiaries will have greater control of their livelihoods because of their enhanced technical capacity to better produce and market cocoa.

For more information, contact Olutayo Akingbe at oakingbe@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 3/08

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