LOCAL COCOA MARKET GIVES RISE TO INCREASED FARMER PRODUCTIVITY

VELLA LAVELLA, WESTERN PROVINCE, SOLOMON ISLANDS

In May 2018, Jesca Theokheranga won the Central Bank of Solomon Islands Women in Micro Business Award.

The field of nominees was impressive, but Jesca stood out above the rest for the positive impact her business, Jesca Theo Commodities Enterprise, has had on cocoa farmers in Vella Lavella. Before the emergence of Jesca’s business, cocoa production in Vella was in rapid decline.

The buyers were inconsistent, Sometimes they wouldn’t come to Vella, and if they did, I was lucky if they would pay me in less than a month.

explained long-time cocoa farmer Phillip Nogolo, recounting his days of
selling cocoa to traders from Honiara.

The unreliability of the market undermined production. Cocoa farmers lacked the capital—and trust in the market—to grow at a wide scale, and as
cocoa trees grew old and bore fewer pods, overall production dropped.
Jesca saw the challenges facing the farmers, and decided to do something about it.

In 2008, she opened a small store and began buying wet beans from local farmers. In 2012, she started buying dry beans as well.

Then in 2016, Jesca started receiving support from the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (RDP) to partner with the Barakoma Cocoa Farmer’s Association to scale up production. With a guarantee from Jesca that she would buy the beans, RDP provided the funding for her to distribute equipment for drying, processing, and storing cocoa beans to six
farmers on the island. RDP also provided tools and training to over 100 farmers to increase their capacity to produce cocoa.

Today, Jesca buys cocoa from an association of 150 farming households. Membership has grown by 50% in the last year, as more and more farmers are seeing that they can benefit from what is now, thanks to Jesca’s business and RDP’s support, a consistent market for cocoa.

Life is so much better now. The trainings put on by the RDP partnership were very helpful, Overall the partnership has been very good for my family. I can pay my children’s school fees, and we are all happy.

voiced Mendana Mola, a cocoa farmer and owner of one of the six dry bean production units distributed via the RDP partnership.

Mendana previously earned about SI$1,000 per month as a fisherman. Now selling cocoa to Jesca, his income has more than doubled.

Jesca expects the farmer association to continue growing, and with it, she expects production to increase as well.

I want to help as many farmers as possible, both men and women. Eventually, my goal is to produce enough to export internationally

Jesca shared.