German MP and Stakeholders Visit Nestlé Cocoa Plan in Koniyaw

Company News of Friday, April 5, 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

2019-04-05

Key representatives of companies and institutions involved in the implementation of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan visited Koniyaw, a project beneficiary community, in Bekwai Municipality, Ashanti Region. .

The exercise was intended to allow the delegation, including Dr Sascha Raabe, a German parliamentarian, to learn more about the plan, which focuses on the child labor monitoring and correction system, the Village Savings Association. and credit, as well as the system of learning by doing for gender equality.

Some 144 cocoa farmers, averaging about 2.5 hectares in size, have been integrated into the Koniyaw Plan.

Ms. Marie Chantal Messier, Head of Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Nestle Central and West Africa Limited, a leading company in the food and beverage industry, said in an interview with the Ghanaian news agency, the project aimed to help farmers adopt modern agronomic practices. increase the yield.

It also aims to address issues related to child labor in cocoa production, deforestation, gender inequality and poor social conditions in cocoa producing communities.

Ms. Messier said the plan was to obtain high quality cocoa beans from legal sources approved for their businesses while increasing farmers' profitability.

"Child labor does not belong in our supply chain," she said. Since 2017, the project has made farmers aware of acceptable practices in their work.

"It's a work in progress, we hope to do more to achieve our goals," she said.

Mr. Prince Gyamfi, deputy country director in charge of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a program to end child labor in cocoa-producing communities with various interventions such as support to the world's largest cocoa farmers. education, said that it was forbidden to involve the child in all forms of work. under international and local laws.

Therefore, he congratulated Nestlé for working closely with ICI to inform farmers about the dangerous nature of child labor and its negative effects on child development.

Ms. Marjoliyn Hekelaar, Sustainable Development Representative for Cocoanect Ghana, a Cocoa Trading and Trading Company, which is one of the implementing agencies of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, said the company was determined to improve the lives and livelihoods of the beneficiary farmers.

She added that her primary goal was to promote the inclusion of women in household decision-making and access to finance for livelihoods of beneficiaries.

Mr. Fred Kukubor, Nestlé Cocoa Plan Manager in Ghana, briefed the delegation on the different aspects of the plan and how it was transforming the lives of cocoa farmers.

Some of the beneficiary farmers, particularly those in Gyasikrom near Asante-Bekwai, whose average production was seven bags per hectare, have now produced about 20 to 25 bags since they have lined up on the Plan, he said.

Deborah Kwablah, public relations and public relations manager for Nestlé Ghana, urged the children of farmers to take their education seriously and become responsible citizens in the future.

For his part, Dr. Raabe congratulated Nestlé and its partners for the excellent work they have done to improve the livelihoods of farmers and to put in place a child labor monitoring system.

He called on stakeholders to step up and expand the monitoring campaign to ensure that children are not involved in hazardous activities on cocoa farms.