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The farmers featured on this site are members of the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative, an association of more than 45,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana set up to develop fairer trading practices and represent the interests of cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo means ‘good cocoa farmer’ in the Twi language. Their motto is ‘Pa Pa Paa’ which means ‘best of the best’ in Twi.
What is a co-operative?
A co-operative is a business owned and governed democratically and directly by farmers themselves. Decisions are based on how the co-operative’s resources can best be used to improve the lives of each family and the community as a whole.
Co-ops help farmers to work together, giving them the strength to compete in the market. They also work to improve community services, such as healthcare, education and access to clean water – and, most importantly, they give farmers the pride and dignity to create a better life.
Farmers are members of village societies who sell their cocoa through the trading arm of Kuapa Kokoo to the government cocoa board. Kuapa Kokoo is able to get their members a better deal on all of their cocoa, but they particularly benefit when their cocoa is sold to Fairtrade companies. The extra income generated through Fairtrade is used to pay all Kuapa’s members a better price and to pay for community projects.
Sadly, however, although all their cocoa meets the required Fairtrade standard, Kuapa Kokoo are only able to sell a small proportion of their cocoa to Fairtrade companies, (currently about 2%). This is because there is not yet enough demand from consumers. More shops will only stock Fairtrade chocolate if people show that they will buy it.
Comic Relief’s Pa Pa Paa resources are all about creating more demand for Fairtrade chocolate, so that Kuapa Kokoo and other small-scale producer organisations can sell more of their produce into the market on fairer terms of trade.
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