Vietnamese Smallholder Cocoa Farmer Increases Income with SUCCESS Alliance
In early 2003 the Agriculture and Forestry University of Ho Chi Minh City planned to establish a few model farms in the Ba Ria Vung Tau Province of Vietnam. They approached the leaders of several communes to find interested and capable farmers to participate. Trinh Van Thanh, a farmer and Xa Bang extension agent, volunteered his land for cocoa experimentation and quickly began to see its potential to improve his and his family’s livelihood.
Thanh planted 400 cocoa trees from a Nong Lam University research program and added 200 cocoa trees from the SUCCESS Alliance, a public-private partnership consisting of USAID, USDA, the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), Mars Inc. and ACDI/VOCA. Thanh said, “Working with the SUCCESS Alliance, I had a great chance to learn more about techniques, particularly with every step of cocoa cultivation. Moreover, the training design helped the farmers to share experiences and business opportunities with each other.”
Thanh’s farm was chosen to be one of the fermentaries in Ba Ria Vung Tau, and he is now buying cocoa pods from 23 surrounding cocoa clubs and selling fermented beans to ED&F Man and Cargill. He sold 3.2 tons of beans in 2005, 6 tons in 2006 and about 3.4 tons within only the first 5 months of 2007. Samples of his cocoa beans were sent to Cargill and Mars Inc., and the results showed that his beans are well fermented (95-97 percent) but still in need of flavor improvement. Thanh and other fermentary owners are experimenting and giving feedback to help other farmers improve their fermentation process in order to achieve the best quality of cocoa.
By intercropping cocoa with coffee and pepper, Thanh has doubled his income since starting the cocoa project. In addition, he has expanded his farm to include a cocoa business housing a nursery, technical training center, cocoa bean buying station and fermentary. He plans to install a heated dryer for the rainy season and intends to continue investing in his farm’s future.