Building tomorrow together

Cacao Nouvel Horizon – Ivory Coast – Cocoa

“Nouvel Horizon” Cocoa is an RMG concept of sustainable cocoa farming developed with cocoa farmer cooperatives.

It is an integrated offer that takes into account the cocoa farmer and his/her family with the goal of improving their livelihoods through the optimized production of quality cocoa beans and respect of the environment.

Objectives :

• Guaranteeing an increase in production through a complete and progressive offer of inputs, fertilizers, equipment and training.
• Guaranteeing the safety of farmers and the preservation of the environment through the recycling and destruction of obsolete products as well as empty packaging.
• Guaranteeing the traceability of products by providing high standard commodity approved in the EU and the USA. “Nouvel Horizon” Cocoa has been endorsed by major international traders.

Benefits of “Nouvel Horizon” Cocoa

• Increased production and quality of cocoa bean
• Access to a certification bonus
• Pre-financing of inputs
• Farmer’s increase of net income

Cocoa Abrabopa – Ghana – Cocoa

In 2007, Wienco Ghana launched COCOA ABRABOPA project with the objective of providing advice and financing farmers to increase production and improve the quality of cocoa. The project allows farmers to improve their livelihood.

COCOA ABRABOPA is a cocoa farmers’ association, created from the willingness of individual farmers to unite themselves and support each other through investments. Currently, Cocoa Abrabopa constitutes 14,000 farmers and 22,000 ha with an average yield of 1200 kg/ha. For the past 6 years, all farmers have been UTZ and Rainforest certified resulting in a significant increase in their annual incomes.  In 2012, Wienco Ghana created Cocoa Abrabopa Pension Scheme (CAPS) that allows farmers to contribute (in the form of cocoa)  towards retirement.

In 2013, another cocoa project was launched in Côte d’Ivoire in partnership with the company, Mars. This project approach differs from Cocoa Abrabopa, although the objective and target (smallholder farmers) remains the same. Here, RMG works in collaboration with a network of 26 Cocoa Village Centers (CVCs), which are centers of expertise and dissemination of good agricultural practices. RMG ensures the establishment of a network of input shops allowing direct access to inputs, fertilizers, safe equipments and technical services associated with good agricultural practices.

Masara N’Arziki – Ghana – Maize

Often associated with cotton, maize cultivation is RMG Group’s third strategic crop. Although considered in the past as a minor crop, maize is becoming a major component of human nutrition and a basic raw material for poultry feed.

Traditional cultivation of white or yellow maize results in low yields, less than 2 tons/ha.

In Ghana, based on the Cocoa Abrabopa model, Wienco Ghana replicated a maize management scheme for smallholder farmers in northern Ghana. This project is called Masara N’Arziki and comprises of 12,000 farmers with 24,000ha and average yields of more than 5,000 kg /ha which is above the average yield in Ghana of 1,300 kg/ha. The high yields are as a result of the introduction of high yield hybrid varieties and the appropriate use of specific fertilizers.

As with cotton, farmers also have the opportunity to grow soybean and sorghum. Wienco Ghana invests in a network of local warehouses that ensures efficient collection, limits losses linked to poor storage and standardizes product quality. Our next goal, in the short term, is to be able to offer crop insurance to farmers.

 

Sahel Farming – Rice – Burkina Faso

As a priority crop for RMG, rice has also become a strategic crop for all countries in the sub-region. Currently more than half of the national demand is covered by imported rice, with low nutritional and taste quality. Rice consumption is increasing at a rate of 15% per annum with an increasing number of people demanding for quality rice.

With this claim in mind, RMG is committed through public-private partnerships (PPP), in supporting the production of quality rice. In Burkina Faso, RMG and its subsidiary Sahel Farming are engaged in a major project to optimize rice production of smallholder farmers in the ​​Bagré irrigated area. Launched in 2011 as part of a PPP with the national management structure, it is now being developed in cooperation with “Bagré Pôle” and is complementary to the World Bank project for the development of the Bagré perimeter’s industrial sector. RMG supports about 800 farmers who grow 1,200ha with average yields of more than 5 tons per cropping season (2 cropping seasons per year). Eventually, RMG aims to support 4,000ha, representing approximately about 3,500 rice farmers and an annual production of 50,000 tons of paddy rice.

The Sahel Farming Rice project is an example of how optimizing the contract farming concept improves farmer livelihoods sustainably.