CONACADO - DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
“We find ourselves a thousand times better since we joined our co-operative. I have children and grand children and they are now able to attend school and I can feed them a better diet. Last year, we built ourselves a new house." Pedro Santo, cocoa farmer at CONACADO in the Dominican Republic, one of Trade Aid’s trading partners.
About Conacado:
Commodity prices for cocoa are not high enough to support much more than day to day survival for many cocoa farmers. For farmers at Conacado, things are a brighter because farmers are assured of a fairer wage.
The Conacado co-operative in the Dominican Republic was started in 1988, and joined the fair trade system in 1995. Conacado now has over 9,000 small farmer members, who belong to 126 smaller cooperatives. It’s goals are to:
- generate work and income for disadvantaged groups, increase quality and productivity;
- foster direct trade relationships;
- and provide credit and technical assistance.
The co-operative has now organised workshops to teach farmers how to improve fermentation techniques, expand sustainable
growing methods, increase productivity, and participate more actively in the co-operative.
The cooperative is working to help farmers improve and expand organic methods so that all cocoa will be certified organic.
