Strong internal organisation will result in growth of cocoa

Amanah Cooperative, situated in Wonomulyo, Polewali Mandar District, West Sulawesi, was established in 2006 by 27 people of whom mostly farmers as a pre-cooperative. On 12 February 2007, Amanah was officially registered as a multi-business secondary cooperative. The cooperative collects cocoa out of 7 regions around Polman district and the plan is to expand to 9 regions in 2015. The members of Amanah are 7 primary cooperatives, consisting of farmer groups. The number of farmer groups has grown from 11 in 2007 to 84 farmer groups in the beginning of 2015. Initially, the goal of Amanah is to secure the collection of cocoa by the primary cooperatives and offering services to the farmers as saving & credit, training and communal purchasing of goods. In this process the cooperative is supported by Veco International, who funds technical support of local NGO and founder of Amanah, Wasiat. In March 2014, the buyer Armajaro indicated no longer to buy the cocoa of the farmer groups. After negotiations with PT Mars Symbioscience Indonesia corporation and collection of internal cash a marketing department was established by Amanah and purchasing and marketing of the cocoa was carried out by the cooperative. After a company assessment in February 2015, Agriterra decided to support Amanah mainly in internal organisation to strengthen the organisation. As one of the recommendations of Agriterra, the cooperative will split up during the first months of 2016. One cooperative will focus on buying and marketing of cocoa and the other cooperative will focus on Saving & Loan and production of organic fertilizer. After the GAM meeting beginning of 2016 the two secondary cooperatives will be operational. Then also a new action plan will be drafted when there is better overview of demand of capacity building for the new organization.