August 10, 2007
USDA Officials Visit ACDI/VOCA’s Cocoa Project in Ecuador
On August 9 General Sales Manager for USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Kirk Miller and USDA Agriculture Counselor for Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador Gene Philhower visited ACDI/VOCA’s $5 million, three-year SUCCESS Alliance project in Ecuador.
The USDA officials visited a cocoa solar dryer located in Supaypungo, Naranjito, in Guayas province, where they talked to producers participating in a commercialization program that brings 8 different communities (approximately 60 farmers) together to harvest and sell quality cocoa. These SUCCESS Alliance farmers have joined forces in order to increase their sales’ volume, save on input purchases and ensure quality so that they may capture a higher percentage of the profits. ACDI/VOCA provides these farmers with skills to shop their cocoa around for the highest price and to access higher-end markets. The cocoa producers have been doing this for about three months and are very happy with the results and improved income that they have obtained so far.
The USDA representatives also paid a visit to the cocoa farm of Fidel Miranda, who has participated in ACDI/VOCA’s farmer field school program and has applied its curriculum to his own land. The famer field schools teach Ecuadorian farmers how to increase cocoa production through improved disease control, crop husbandry and post-harvest processing techniques. The USDA visitors were impressed with the high yield and production potential using the ICS-95 plant variety of cocoa from Venezuela, which was evident from Miranda’s many young and growing cocoa pods on a number of cocoa trees, along with profuse blooming on others.
Miller and Philhower also visited the National Crop and Livestock Autonomous Research Institution’s experiment station in Boliche to view the clonal garden initiative funded by the SUCCESS Alliance project and designed to make high-quality planting material available to smallholder farmers. The officials also spoke with the employees of Transmar Ecuador post-harvest and purchasing program. Transmar is an international cocoa trading company that buys freshly harvested cocoa pods from farmers and conducting post-harvest processing in order to ensure top-quality cocoa products to sell to selected buyers and chocolate manufacturers. Transmar has collaborated with the SUCCESS Alliance project on this and other initiatives.
For more information on Ecuador SUCCESS Alliance click here.