The regulatory body of the coffee/cocoa sector in Cote d’Ivoire has started the process of handing over the document used as a bank card and electronic wallet for transactions related to the purchase of beans.
Kouassi Adjoumani, Minister of State, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, presided this Wednesday in Abidjan, the official ceremony of distribution of coffee-cocoa producer cards. In the discussions, Yves Brahima Kone, Director General of the Coffee-Cocoa Council, said that payments will now be made directly to the cards of cooperative delegates who will no longer handle money.
Once in contact with the farmer, the delegates will use their tablets to scan the QR code on the farmer’s card. This way, they will have information about his identity, the plantation data and its potential in terms of production. All this information will be written on the bags.
Continuing, Mr. Brahima said that the only element that the delegate will not be able to change is the price embedded in the terminals. When the weight is validated, a ticket is given to the planter allowing him to know the total price. To finalize the operation, the delegate transfers money to the planter’s card. The latter receives an SMS that provides him with the data related to the purchase. With his receipt, the producer has the list of points where he can withdraw his money.
“You no longer need to carry all your money with you. Your card will allow you to make your purchase in the stores and to make small withdrawals for your daily shopping and those of your families. No more road blockers,” said Mr. Adjoumani.
A revolution appreciated by the actors of the sector: “Today, we have a producer’s card that solves all these problems and allows us to be paid at the right price,” said the spokesman for the cooperatives, Ano Frederic.
The census in the coffee and cocoa sector cost about 6.5 billion CFA francs. A total of 993,031 producers were counted, 8 percent of whom were women and 92 percent men. The average age of producers is 44 years and more than 60 percent of them are over 40 years old.
The producer card aims at the traceability of cocoa to ensure transparency on its origin. Work began in 2019 and resulted in the feasibility study of the coffee-cocoa value chain. This sector is socially and economically important for Cote d’Ivoire. Ivorian cocoa weighs 40 percent in global production, or two million tons. No other country does better.
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