Kwame Kwaten

WHY IS IT PROBLEMATIC FOR KOA TO PAY COCOA FARMERS THROUGH MOBILE MONEY?

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Mobile money as a financial system was introduced to support the non-banked population, mostly in rural African agrarian communities, to perform financial transactions efficiently. The basis was that the financial institutions found it costly to set up “retail banking centres” in rural areas. It was also argued that there were high risks associated with the […]

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WHO BENEFITS FROM KOA’S TRANSPARENCY SYSTEM? THE COCOA FARMER, KOA OR KOA’S COLLABORATORS?

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The Assessment of KOA’s Transparency system continuous The other issue revealed is how Koa gains and the farmer loses out on the currency depreciation: As noted in Graph 1 (part 1), The Ghana Cedi depreciated/US$ appreciated by 55%. This means the income earned by farmers from Koa lost 55% of its value in just a

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AN EXPLORATORY INTERVIEW WITH KOA ON THEIR ‘RADICAL TRANSPARENCY BLOCKCHAIN-BASED SYSTEM’

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Koa is a Swiss-Ghanaian business that focuses on creating a new revenue generation stream for cocoa farmers by processing cocoa pulp into juice, concentrate and Powder. Whereas cocoa farmers rely on the cocoa pulp for cocoa bean fermentation, its excesses lead to food waste and elongation of the fermentation process. So, harvesting the excess cocoa

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IS NIGERIA’S COCOA SECTOR RENNAISANCE GOING TO CAUSE THE INTENDED WINNERS TO LOSE MORE THAN THEY WIN? 

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My Analysis on Cocoa Diaries Interview with CFAN President. My Thoughts First, I think I can fairly say that since Mr Adeola is the Nigerian Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria’s president and one of the leading figures championing the Nigerian Cocoa sector Renaissance, his thoughts and opinions reflect close to the consensus of the team

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DOES GHANA COCOA BOARD THINK NIGERIA IS IN FOR COOPERATION OR COMPETITION WITH THEIR COCOA SECTOR RENAISSANCE?

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Further in the conversation, I asked about their overarching goals with this revival. I wanted to understand where their focus was. Whether they were going to repeat Ghana’s mistakes of prioritising the political benefits and any benefit to the farmer to be an unintended consequence, he highlighted Increasing youth employment, the attraction of Foreign Direct

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cocoa pod

NIGERIA’S ENTHUSIASM TO OUTPERFORM GHANA AND IVORY COAST COCOA PRODUCTION

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Since the beginning of 2022, one of the major announcements that dominated news within the cocoa chocolate sector was Nigeria’s announcement to revive its cocoa sector with the ambition to overtake Ghana and Ivory Coast to become the global leader in cocoa production by 2027 and I considered whether this was political rhetoric. However, to not

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KOA’S ECONOMIC OPERATING MODEL IN GHANA

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During my master’s Thesis in 2019, I reflected on almost all the known initiatives the Ghana Government and industry stakeholders announced to have implemented to address the livelihood changes of smallholder farmers. I concluded that: It is not real for smallholder farmers to sustainably gain sufficient income to solve their income-driven challenges if they attempt

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ASSESSING KOA’S DEFINITION OF SUSTAINABILITY AND THE TREATMENT OF THEIR PARTNER FARMERS

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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)

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EXPOSING COCOBOD’S LACK OF VISION THE WEST’S SUSTAINABILITY HYPOCRISY, OR BOTH?

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PART ONE In 2017, a German Investor who initially came to Ghana to explore the viability of a solar business ended up establishing the first cocoa-pulp manufacturing factory in Ghana. They recently also launched their blockchain-based transparency system to demonstrate to their customers how much they pay their partner farmers. While this business venture converts

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MONDELĒZ AND OLAM OUTSMARTING FARMERS. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

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Part three …… To Mondelēz/Olam I am not writing this article to virtue signal. I may have done precisely if not more of what Mondelēz/Olam is doing. As a for-profit organisation with shareholders to please, with your staff demanding salary increments and the rise in risk posed by health-conscious eating to your business model and

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