MASO is a five year programme, focused on creating employment opportunities for the youth (aged 18-25) in Ghana’s cocoa communities.
My name is John Alu ,a 25-year-old young man from Leklebi Agbesia in the Volta region. I started my first cocoa farm four years ago but decided to join the MASO Agro Academy in 2016 to learn how to grow cocoa professionally.
I would like to tell you about my journey so far.
MASO came into my community in 2015, when I was already a cocoa farmer but I was farming for survival and I barely knew anything about proper farm management practices. I decided to join because I knew there was a lot I could learn to help improve my farm. I joined the Agro Academy and went through a six-month theoretical training then practical training for six months. This thought me good agronomic practices specific to cocoa farming. Skills I have transferred to my old cocoa two-acre cocoa farm.
Through the MASO programme, I was trained in the best agronomic practices, and basic financial skills as well as social skills. I was also encouraged to adopt technical knowledge, develop a business plan for my farm and make use of the practical learning experience. This has been very helpful to me.
Thanks to MASO, I now own a 1-acre farm just for cocoa cultivation in addition to my two acres I started four years ago. In starting my new farm, I planted cocoa together with plantain. The significance of plantain on my farm is to provide shade to the cocoa seedling during the dry season. Plantain and other crops were not intercropped with the cocoa seedlings on my old farm. This is something new I have learnt and will teach other farmers starting new cocoa farms. While I wait for my cocoa seedlings to mature, I will harvest and sell the plantains to make some money for myself.
Looking back, I do not regret my decision. There are no jobs in the community so I decided to go into cash crop production. I noticed the older farmers continue to harvest cocoa from farms they planted over 20 years ago. I want to also enjoy my labour when I am much older.
There were challenges initially; I had no money to buy agro inputs for my farm. I started offering labour services with my friends to other farmers. We are young so we weed faster and now that we have learnt other skills in cocoa farming, we go beyond just weeding to also prune their farms for them and help farmers harvest their cocoa. We are making sure other people in Leklebi Agbesia are also benefiting from our skills. We charge GHs 150 Ghana cedis for weeding an acre of a cocoa farm.
John Alu with his friends on a farm
I see a future for my business and it is bright, so I will definitely expand my cocoa farm to 10 acres by 2021. Even though there is limited land in the community, I will ask landowners to either sell or lease some of their lands to me.
