Q&A: Fred Frimpong, MASO Programme Manager reflects on two and half years of implementation

The MASO programme was started in 2016. For the past two and half years, the programme has trained thousands of young people in cocoa growing communities to either become entrepreneurial cocoa farmers and or businessmen and women providing various services to the cocoa sector.

Fred Frimpong, the MASO Programme Manager reflects on  two and half years of the programme implementation. He talks about the achievements, challenges, and strategies adopted to enhance programme sustainability.

Lamisi Dabire : Can you provide us with an overview of the MASO programme  to date?

Fred Frimpong : As you are well aware, we started in January, 2016 and  rolled out the MASO programme essentially to provide career option opportunities for young people in the cocoa sector. The main idea was to produce entrepreneurial farmers, young farmers and other young entrepreneurs who would want to run service provision businesses within the cocoa space. We are already halfway through the programme and as things stand now, we have been able to create a core group of committed of young entrepreneurial farmers who are now prepared and able to take cocoa farming to the next level., we have taken more than 4,000 of these young people through the processes of capacity building, training based on field demonstration, as well as financial literacy, personal skills development, soft skills development, and entrepreneurial skills. Two cohorts of youth, have now graduated and set up their farm businesses as well as small ventures in the cocoa communities. The recurring trend is the fact that, these young people have now started off producing food crops like plantain, cassava, cocoyam, and maize because those one takes a shorter period to yield but cocoa is more long-term. On the business incubator, side there as many as about 45 ventures that have successfully been tested and are thriving. The good news is that already some young people are seeing some return on their investment because of the short cycle food groups that they are harvesting and they have now become our ambassadors and trump kings to convince other young people that this is possible.

Lamisi Dabire: What would you say are the key  achievements of the programme?

Fred Frimpong :The young people have established close to 1000 hectares of new farms and there are about 450 hectares of old farms that are being rehabilitated. Beyond these, those in the Business Academy have started their small businesses. The main results are on how many people we have trained or how many young people we have imparted through the programme but rather how many young people who have received training, have translated their new skills into something practical. We still have some of the youth from the first cohort who have not been able to acquire land and we are going to support them this year to also start their farming activities as well.

Lamisi Dabire: What are the key challenges affecting smooth programme implementation?

Fred Frimpong :There will always be challenges. There are some that are surmountable and easy to deal with but one thing that really stands out is a reliable and sustainable source of funding for the youth has been a headache for us. The reason being that, the financial institutions already do not understand the agricultural sector so they do not want to venture into it. Also, they see these young people as highly risky clients and so they do not even want to go there right from the beginning. This is something that we have been seeking partnerships and engaging the stakeholders to find a solution to. Thankfully, we seem to be making some progress now. We have thought about some proposals on how to put in a sustainable and reliable source of funding which is not going to be free but as well not going to be on terms that are too difficult for these young startups to be able to survive on.

Beyond access to finance, there are issues of traditional cultural barriers that limit young people especially young women access to land in some areas. In all these situations, what we are doing a lot of advocacy alongside our work to bring change and support to the young people. Question: How much do we think will be a good amount of money for a startup for each of these youth?

We have done business analysis which points to the fact that for a farming business, an average of 2.5 hectares of land (Five acres) will be a good profitable farm for one person to run. Averagely,  the youth require  between USD 500 and USD 600 as capital for their farms. The good thing is that the young person does not even need the entire amount at a go, because the farms will be established in phases. so the amount could come in about 2-3 crunches over a period of 2-3years. With the service provision businesses, it actually varies depending on the kind of business venture. For instance, people who are going into farm maintenance businesses will require equipment like mechanized pruners because we also try to introduce technology. We do not want to do things with the “hoe and cutlass” mentality again. So people who are going into farm maintenance would require a little bit more because of the mechanization but even that, you can do a high purchase equipment scheme for them and they do not need to pay everything at a start, they can be working and paying for the equipment. People who go into sales like input sales will also require not more than 600 USD as a start and then build it up from there.

Lamisi Dabire : What kinds of long-term sustainability measures are you already adapting in the programme to ensure the youth you are training do not abandon shift once the programme ends but will continue to provide continues services to sustain the cocoa sector?

Fred Frimpong :This is a very important question. We are building a partnership with all the private sector and allied state agencies. Recently, I spoke about us aligning with the planting for food and jobs programme. We also have situations where some of our trainees have already landed jobs with some of the private sector cocoa companies. We are also working to foster a strong relationship between the cocoa sector companies’ rural service centers and our young people. All these partnerships with private sectors, government-sponsored programmes, long-term institutions are to prepare ourselves for the future.

Another thing we are doing to ensure sustainability is the empowerment of these young people themselves. As you might be aware, there is a strong alumni network we have supported these young people to build and part of the role of that network is to engage on behalf of these young people.

Lamisi Dabire : What do you expect to see is happening in the cocoa-producing communities you are working by 2020?

Fred Frimpong :Two major things for me; the first thing is that by the end of this programme we should have been able to develop a model that shows how best we can attract young people in the cocoa sector. A model that will become the blueprint for policymakers, private sector people, to pick up and to move forward with it in future in terms of how we can better it and whet the appetite of young people in the cocoa sector.

The second thing key deliverable is the fact that we have been able to contribute towards the transformation of the cocoa sector in general because we have a lot more young people in the sector farming as an enterprise and as a business rather than as a way of life. Traditionally, our farmers have been doing cocoa farming as a cultural thing rather than as a business and we believe that, once we have been able to create that mindset in among young people who are looking at farming and associated businesses from an entrepreneurial type of view that would be able to transform the industry going forward. It is not really about the numbers but creating these two scenarios will be a very good achievement for the programme.

About the author

Lamisi Dabire, is a Communication Specialist with Solidaridad West Africa and is based in Accra. Lamisi among others manages communication for the MASO Programme.