[Part 2] KOA'S BUSINESS EXPLOITS IN THE GHANAIAN COCOA SECTOR

Assessing KOA's Definition of Sustainability and The Treatment of Their Partner Farmers.

Source: KOA’s Website

Continued from Part One

KOA’S Definition of Sustainability

One of my most important questions was asking them what KOA’s definition of sustainability meant and how it influenced their business model and relationship with their partner farmers. To KOA, they preferred to replace the word “Sustainability” with “Responsibility”. They believe investing in the humans (The people) first would lead to the humans protecting the planet as expected. They decried chocolate companies focused on environmental sustainability when investing in the people and boosting their incomes can have a positive trickle-down effect on protecting the environment and labour-related issues more easily without a struggle. KOA prefers to pursue this by first ensuring the economic well-being of the farmers by offering farmers a net income of $344 per 40% of cocoa pulp from wet beans required to produce a metric ton of dried beans.

Another interesting thing they added was that their business with the farmers helps the farmers to eliminate the cost of transporting their wet beans from their farms to the fermentation area, which is mostly away from the pod-breaking area. However, their business interest is not in the dried beans value chain. However, they still contribute to reducing the cost of production of dried beans with their commitment to transporting wet beings on behalf of farmers to their fermentation area.

Socially, their continuous inclusion and collaboration with farmers allow them to be in touch with what the community wants, ensuring that their operations align with the interest of the people of Assin Akrofuom. To ensure that the farmers’ business is financially sustainable, they deal directly with farmers with no intermediary. Hence the farmers maintain all the margins. KOA is currently working with over 2,200 farmers and hopes to expand to 10,000 farmers in the next ten years, consequently expanding the GDP of Assin Akrofuom and spreading the benefits of pulp processing to more cocoa farmers and their communities.

“True to their word, after the interview, KOA announced their $10m investment to expand their pulp processing to include 10,000 farmers and 250 new jobs.”

Concerning their environmental impact, they highlighted that the value added to the