Lessons from the Internal Control System of the CoCoA Aceh Utara Cooperative

Summary

The organic cacao cultivation practice at the CoCoA Aceh Utara Cooperative was started in 2007, with the foundation of the organic cacao cooperative. The foundation was facilitated by the government of Indonesia, in collaboration with the German agency for technical cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ), under the “Organic and Fairtrade Cacao in Aceh” Program. Through the GTZ program, the farmers received training on sustainable cacao cultivation system, which spans the land preparation through to post-harvest processing. The program supported the construction of cooperative’s office and processing unit buildings. It also supported the certification of organic cacao, in collaboration with an international certification agency, the Institute for Marketecology (IMO) of Switzerland.
Some cacao farmers had previously heard of organic farming, but they had not understood how to perform organic farming correctly. To support the organic standard conformance by the farmers, the cooperative developed an internal control system (ICS). The cooperative also promotes the organic cacao program to its farmer members.