 Cashew Yield Increase: When intercropping cocoa under cashew canopy, farmers take care of cocoa trees (fertilizing, irrigating, mulching etc) that will benefit cashew and increase cashew yield. Additional Income from Cocoa: Being intercropping under cashew canopy but cocoa makes a greater revenue in comparison with cashew. With the advised density at 666 trees/ha, annual revenue from cocoa trees is estimated at about 50-65 millions VND per ha. Income Diversification: Reduce risks of depending on a single product. Stretch out family incomes through the year since harvesting 02 types of products at different times of the year. State of the Art Quality: The Partnership organizes concentrated and large-scale post harvest systems. The post harvest will strictly follow the protocols supervised by the Partnership. Therefore, the quality of fermented beans is high and consistent. The Partnership ensures that cocoa beans produced from its fermentaries will at least meet type 1A of the National Quality Standards for cocoa fermented beans and meet other international standards as specified in the codes of conducts of Utz Certify for cocoa. Market Efficiency and Competitive Price: The Partnership between CNX and farmers will help to reduce input costs (lower price with collective buying to purchase a large amount of goods from credited suppliers); farmers will get better prices for their cocoa as there is no intermediate collectors. In addition, the Partnership’s objective is be certified by UTZ and as the result, cocoa beans produced from the Partnership will have premium from buyers who are UTZ’s alliance. Minimize Use of Chemicals: Cocoa production in the Partnership will strictly follows UTZ’s Codes of Conducts for cocoa. Utz standards are internationally recognized, therefore the use of agrochemicals, issues of environmental protection will meet international requirements. Maximize Use of Manures & Composts: The Partnership organizes centralized fermentation stations, therefore pollutions will be strictly controlled. The by-products such as cocoa pod-shell will be composting to make manures to provide back to farmers in order to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. Create an Environmental Friendly Farms: In traditional ways of cashew cultivation, farmers often clean off the ground during harvesting season. This increases the pressure of water evaporation, soil fertile washout and erosion. When intercropping cocoa under cashew canopy, the ground will be covered due to the surplus of vegetative accumulation during the process of pruning. This vegetative layer keeps a stable soil humidity, maintains the efficient activities of the surface roots, reduces the frequency of irrigations and gets rid of weeds. When the organic layer decays, it will become a source of nutrition for the trees and improve the physical characteristics of soil that lead to increase the capacity of water absorption. The vegetative layer also reduces erosion during rainy season. Besides of that, cocoa has thick canopy, therefore it can relieve the damages of rain fall during the rain thus limits soil washout and erosion. Improve Community Social Interactive: The Partnership will create mutual relationships among farmers as well as between farmers and enterprise in productive operations. Through out a number training events, community social relationships will be improved. The training programs of CNX not only focus on cocoa cultivation techniques but also deliver topics such as farming as a business (FaaB), responding to climate changes. These will help farmers to improve their abilities on family economic management, economic decision makings and coping with the abnormal of natural conditions. Release In-house Labors: Intercropping cocoa under cashew canopy will absorb more labors from family on the same land area. Cocoa doesn’t require seasonal intensive labors like coffee, therefore it is within the farmer’s capacity to use in house labors. The labor requirement for cocoa is evenly distributed through out the year and therefore, it reduces farmer’s need of being hired in urban areas in off season when there is not enough works to do on farms. |