N’zi N’guessan Moya Adeline Flavie  

N’zi is a cocoa farmer and owns her land which she inherited from her father. She has been running her farm for ten years and produces cocoa, bananas, cassava and yams. Cocoa is the only product she can sell for money. The rest she uses for consumption. The land is divided into smaller plots that are tended by other family members, mainly nephews. N’zi supervises and makes sure the land is cultivated well.

The Fairtrade premium helps her and the group of cocoa farmers, among other things, in planting shade trees to protect cocoa plants, training and building school class rooms.  

The Fairtrade premium is an additional amount that Fairtrade-certified cooperatives receive on top of the selling price of cocoa. From this premium, N’zi was trained to manage her land better and increase productivity. She is now able to plan for all the pre- and post-harvest activities and makes sure that everyone starts on time in the season. She also says the Fairtrade awareness training courses on child labour are very important to further prevent and eliminate child labour. N’zi is now also aware of her rights as a woman.

Her day starts at 6:00 am. If she works on her plot and the weather turns bad, she sleeps in a very small house close to her land, but she prefers to travel back home. She usually works on other crops until 11:00 am, then she moves to cocoa. She has a break between 12:00 and 3:00 pm because during this time it is too hot to work. After 3:00 pm she continues working on cocoa until 6:00 pm. Then it is nearly dark, and she needs to go home.  

She works long days but enjoys the work. As a little girl she wanted to become a doctor, but now her passion is to buy more land and make her cocoa business bigger. She is proud to be the head of a cocoa plantation!