My favorite cocoa cooperative, the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union in Ghana, just held its 15th annual general meeting. The AGM is the highest decision making body of the cooperative and many policies for the next year are set during the proceedings.
It is also the time when representatives of the many village societies that make up the cooperative have the opportunity to bring the concerns of their farmer members to the attention of the leadership. The KKFU now has 52,000 individual members living in 1,333 village societies.
KKFU president P.C.K. Buah also used the opportunity of the meeting to expresse the cooperative’s support for Ghana’s goal to raise the country’s cocoa output to 1 million tons by 2010/11. He pledged to use the organizations resources to encourage farmers to adopt better farming techniques. The cooperative will also supply fertilizer at subsidized prices.
The managing director of Divine Chocolate, Sophie Tranchell, also attended the meeting and delivered a check in the amount of £33,602.35, the dividends the company earned for the farmers during the previous year. KKFU owns 45 percent of Divine Chocolate.
One interesting bit of information I gleaned from the article was the fact that KKFU had invested $100,000 for the expansion of Divine Chocolate to the USA, including the opening of an office in Washington.
Thanks for the post on Kuapa Kokoo’s AGM Michael. We’re hoping Sophi will put up a post about the highlights of the AGM when she gets back in the office – Kuapa Kokoo gave Divine rather a special honour!
Would you consider contributing a guest post at our blog http://divinedelights.wordpress.com?
Great to read of the really positive work that is happening with Divine and Kuapa Kakoo.
The AGM sounded really fascinating!
This may be a dumb question, but I was wondering if Kuapa Kokoo’s makes public any minutes or documentation of what actually happens at the AGM… It would be interesting to understand more how such a cooperative works and particularly in these specific business contexts.
Thanks again
Scott,
I’m sure there are minutes of the AGM, but I don’t know if they are available to the public. I assume that some report of the AGM will eventually show up on the KKFU website. Charlotte, the other commenter on this post, may be able to say something about that. You can always contact Divine Chocolate.
Many thanks Michael! I will try finding out more from Charlotte and Divine.
I feel that as the most prolific slogan identifying fair trade as distinguished from unfair trade as “a trading partnership, based on dialogue, TRANSPARENCY and respect…” ensuring all elements of our fair trading partnerships are open, clear and easily understood is an important aspect of fair trade’s ongoing credibility!