Pineapple Project Ghana
The Story
John Essoun, a pineapple farmer near Elmina, Ghana, has been supporting his family for multiple years. Unfortunately, droughts have been destroying many of his crops before harvest season and animals have been feeding on them due to the lack of protection and pesticides in place.
John already had a solution in mind, yet he was unable to put his plan into action due to the lack of financing and high interest rates. We kindly invite him to find a way to help him overcome this difficulty.
The Project
This project is centred around giving Mr. Essoun the right resources,
in this case a loan for the purchase of a plastic sheet which will keep
the land moist all year round and away from animals.
The micro-loan for this roll of plastic is a total of 1,500 Ghanian Cedi or 278.97 EUR paid back over 2 years with an interest of 15%.Together we predicted that this solution will result in a twice as high harvest turnover than before. Which will result in a higher income for him and his family.
The second part of this project would be to help with pricing. Our man on the ground and facilitator of this project, Bernard Evans Enu has seen that a new juice factory will be opening down the road from Mr. Essoun his land. Ben will be helping with offering the pineapples to the juice factory and negotiate a reasonable price.
Lastly, due to many farmers living around this area and requiring more input we will try to build a cooperative. This would be a group of farmers that can come together weekly/monthly to share knowledge about farming, new techniques and possible collaborations. In this way it would also be easier for The Leaf Foundation to reach more people to provide help or do small educational workshops.
Project Process
This project was acquired at the beginning of 2018. During that same summer 2 members from The Leaf Foundation went to Ghana to visit Mr. Essoun and his farm. There we already had a look at how the plastic sheet (as seen below) makes an impact. After the visit we approved our first project in Ghana and set up all that was necessary. The loan to Mr. Essoun was deposited in Dec 2018. John will be making a monthly payment of 75 GH₵ over 2 years.
Update February 2019
Mr. Essoun has been making larger than required monthly payments of 100 GH₵. Due to our trust and funding, he was able to acquire a new loan to expand the farm further. Ben, our facilitator, is also in talks with the juice factory to negotiate a good price.