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Our Success Story
SUCCESS STORY FOR WEST AFRICA (GHANA AND LIBERIA)

About 1,300 collectors in Ghana and Liberia generate over $1.6m worth of seeds from wild collection of NTFPs.

One of ASNAPP’s strategic development initiatives is the promotion of natural products as a complementary income generating activity to supplement existing activities of farmers, collectors and processors that it has assisted over the past five years. The approach adopted has been to sustainably commercialize natural products that will contribute to socio-economic development in addition to helping beneficiaries diversify their risks and over exposure/reliance on traditional sources of income and markets. ASNAPP therefore presented a five year proposal to ICCO for approval and implementation for both Liberia and Ghana. ICCO approved the alternative livelihood project and agreed to fund the first two years. ASNAPP partnered with two local ICCO assisted NGO’s with local presence (RUDEYA and SAMFU in Ghana and Liberia respectively) to implement this project. The activities under this project were implemented with research support from KNUST and technical backstopping from Rutgers University.Leverage funding was also received from other partnering institutions such as ARD/USAID, HORT CRSP MLNR etc to expand these activities beyond the project areas.

For the year under review, a 500m2 centralized nursery was established in Ghana accommodating 90,000 GOP seedlings, 1,500 Voacanga seedlings, 5,000 Black pepper seedlings, 4,000 Griffonia seedlings. Seedlings from the nursery were supplied to 69 farmers to establish 36.8 acres of intercropped NTFP farms.

Prior to the farm establishment phase, 142 farmers and 10 partners’ capacities were built in agronomy, BDS and post-harvest handling on the cultivated NTFPs. This was reinforced with farmer to farmer exchange for 10 farmers each. 480 collectors and agents were also trained on wild collection of medicinal plants for the 2009 Griffonia season.

Grains of Paradise growers supplied 2.5MT of the products to Starlight Company and Phytobase industries valued at $17,000 with ASNAPP serving as market facilitators. By working closely with other private sector companies and its communities, ASNAPP was able to mobilize 12MT of kombo nuts valued at over $4,000 and assisted Begoro women group to process 4MT of kombo butter for the US market valued at $12,000. With these trades, ASNAPP acted as the honest broker ensuring that suppliers meet buyer’s quality requirements and specifications and buyers pay for goods supplied.

Similar livelihood project was undertaken in Liberia which saw ASNAPP supporting farmers in four counties to establish seven 50,000 seedling capacity nurseries in 4 counties for seedling supply for farm establishment. In all 150,000 seedlings of Grains of paradise, 300,000 seedlings of BEC and 26,000 seedlings of improved variety (Balancotta) of black pepper developed and supplied to over 100 farmers for the establishment of over 70 acres of NTFP farms. 600 collectors and agents capacities were built on wild collection of medicinal plants in Nimba, Sinoe, Grand Gedeh and River Gee that yielded 700kg of Griffonia valued at $3,500 in the 1st 6 months  of interventions; the first of its kind in Liberia. 

Additionally, ASNAPP facilitated the mobilization of about 15MT of wild Griffonia seeds from collectors within and beyond the project areas for two private companies (West Africa Naturals and Pure Company) valued at $225,000 with collectors generating $200 to $500 per person for the season. The organization also worked with 5 key agents and exporters who independently mobilized and supplied about 100MT of Griffonia valued at $1,500,000.