“Growing cocoa is like planting your future” – the story of Francisca Frimpong

Imagine being a Junior High School dropout, a single mother at 16, unemployed (because she does not consider her work on the farm as employment), unskilled, no financial support and practically “wasting away” in a rural community that was the story of Francisca Frimpong.

Francesca is  23-years-old and resides in Abidjan, a small cocoa growing community near Kasapin in the Asunafo North district of the Brong Ahafo Region. She dropped out of Junior High School and became unemployed. Francisca occasionally followed her parents’ to the farm. She expected like everyone else in her community, that she would become a farmer eventually.

Francisca Frimpong , a MASO Youth from Kasapin on a demonstration farm

So at age 20 and a single mother of a  4-year-old child, Francisca started a 1-acre farm growing mostly foodstuffs for food security and for income. She subsequently planted cocoa on her farm. She understood that cocoa was an important crop and needed to be maintained the right way but she had no training.

“It is difficult to grow cocoa but I was committed to starting my own cocoa farm”.

The MASO programme in 2015 started work in the Kasapin area. The programme recruited youth aged between 18-25years who were desirous to be trained as cocoa entrepreneurs.

Francisca is one of over 2000 young people in Ghana who enrolled in the MASO programme in 2015. They received training in cocoa agronomy to enable them establish cocoa farms.

“Joining the MASO programme has been very helpful to me. I have established my own cocoa farm”, Francisca said.

Francisca Frimpong in her community

Francisca has now changed the face of her cocoa farm. She now has a 3-acre farm, 2-acres for cocoa and an acre for foodstuff, mainly cassava and plantain.

Her farm is still young and not bearing any cocoa pods. For now, she solely relies on her cassava and plantain farm for her livelihood. Relying on her parents is not an option as she comes from a very large family and has very young siblings, so her parents are focused on taking care of the young ones while, the older ones are left to take care of themselves. Francisca believes it is a matter of survival for her to succeed.

Francisca will have to wait for another 2-3years before she starts earning an income from her cocoa farm. Till then, her livelihood will depend on the foodstuffs she grows on her farm.

Francisca is anticipating by 2020 when MASO ends, she will be the proud owner of a minimum of 5 acres cocoa farm to prove to herself that she made it.

“If a young woman like me can be a farmer then everyone else can do same. Growing cocoa is like planting your future. And MASO has helped me to do so”.

Story: Hannah-Joy Amissah

Photos: Hannah-Joy Amissah & Mustapha Bin Usman