After our recent interview with Amos Kouassi, we decided we’d hop over to Ghana to find out more about cocoa-farming co-operatives from our Project Officer, Abass Mansungba Wudana I. Read on to learn more about what cooperatives are, what they do, why they’re important, and how they’re overcoming challenges they face.

What is your role at Elucid and what is your background?

I currently serve as Project Officer with Elucid Social Ghana based in Suhum in the Eastern region. My role focuses on planning and implementing health projects tailored to the needs of cocoa farming households in Suhum, Ayensuano, and Abuakwa South districts. It includes promoting preventive healthcare practices, linking farmers to services such as the National Health Insurance Scheme, and coordinating with partners and local healthcare providers.

My background is in sustainable agriculture and community development. Over the past eight years, I have worked closely with rural communities and cooperative/farmer associations to implement projects that improved farm productivity, livelihood, and well-being. I am passionate about community engagement and using data to bridge the gap between sustainability goals and local realities.

Can you explain a little bit what a farming cooperative is and what role they play for farmers? Can you tell us about how they work/their structure, and how farmers benefit from being members?

A farming cooperative is a member-led or owned, and democratically governed, organization that allows farmers to pool resources, share risks and collectively access market, training and agricultural extension services. Typically, farming cooperatives have a general assembly of members, an elected board and various committees that oversee operations such as certification, finance, child protection, grievances and welfare of the members.

Farming cooperatives are essential for farmers because they improve access to inputs, fair pricing for produce, training and social or community services. They serve as a channel for distributing resources and organizing collective actions in meeting compliance demands in sustainable development.

Much of our work is based on collaboration with farming cooperatives. What role do these collaborations play in Elucid’s wider mission, and what role do they play in cocoa supply chains?

Collaborating with farming cooperatives allows Elucid to deliver on its mission: making human health benefit supply chains. Farming cooperatives are crucial partners as they help access farming communities, deliver health interventions, and collect reliable data. In cocoa supply chains, cooperatives are the interface between smallholder farmers and the buyers or market, especially in ensuring traceability, implementing standards, and organizing compliance training. Our collaboration strengthens both the farmer community’s health and supply chain credibility.

From a practical perspective, what does working together with cooperatives and maintaining a positive collaborative relationship with them entail? What type of work do you have to do for this?

It involves regular communication, joint planning, mutual respect and consistent follow-up to the farmer communities in our work. I engage with cooperative leaders and members to align on health project priorities, organize community health education sessions, coordinate NHIS registration drives, assist members in accessing healthcare at approved providers, and data collection on farmer well-being. A big part of the work is building trust by showing up, listening to their concerns and co-creating solutions that make sense locally.

Can you tell us one of your favourite memories of collaboration with a cooperative? Why did this stick with you?

One of my favourite memories was witnessing a cooperative take the lead in organizing the members for NHIS registrations and Elucid coverage registration for over 2000 household members of the cooperative. What stood out was how they mobilized the members, created awareness and handled issues efficiently. This is the power of local leadership and ownership, and reminds me of why partnerships are at the heart of what we do at Elucid.

Cooperatives report increased numbers of farmers in the communities registering to join them due to the cooperative partnership with Elucid, testimonials from members under the health coverage. A community before Elucid partnership had only 25 farmers as cooperative members, now, they can boast of 125 joining.

What first-hand results can you see for farmer health from working with cooperatives?

I have seen real progress, that is, farmers and their household getting registered with NHIS, receiving health education ,and accessing healthcare for health conditions which affect their productivity on the farm. With the partnership, farmer health is improved and they can walk into any of the collaborating healthcare providers/centres without the fear that they do not have money to pay for treatment. Farmers are now investing in child education and building homes for the family from the monies saved.

The cooperatives helped us reach farmers at scale and in culturally appropriate way.

What are some of the biggest challenges farming cooperatives face today, and how do they try to overcome them?

Some key challenges include financial literacy and saving attitudes to support their initiatives, capacity gaps in leadership and member commitment, the growing burden of compliance with emerging regulations for the cocoa and related sectors, like the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Other challenges include child and forced labour, as well as cooperative responsibility in ensuring adherence to occupational health and safety standards for their members.

To overcome the challenges, cooperative are investing in training and capacity-building for leadership, staff, and members in financial literacy and self-support services, partnering with local and international organisations such as certification bodies and sustainability platforms, to serve the interest of the cooperative and its members to foster unity and collaboration. Cooperatives are also adopting digital traceability and record keeping systems, engaging in landscape planning and participating in good governance training, child monitoring and remediation systems and climate- smart agriculture trainings.

In particular, a partnership with Elucid can help cooperatives achieve higher marks for their respect for members’ occupational and health safety standards as enshrined in their annual audits. Real data from Elucid can also support their evidence of service to their members.

How can we improve our collaboration with them and or what could we do that could benefit our in-country communications?

We can improve collaboration by ensuring early involvement of cooperatives in planning and decision-making processes, requiring a deeper, more inclusive, and culturally grounded approach to engagement.

Communication with the cooperative should be clear and coupled with visual and audio materials, locally relevant, and translated into local languages.

In addition, consistent engagement and feedback loops where the cooperative shares what is working and what needs improvement can make collaborations more responsive and impactful. Better collaboration means building shared value, and not just service.

Publicly acknowledging and celebrating milestones with the cooperatives can also motivate continued participation, highlighting achievements through success stories and community events.