Background

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The Blue Skies Organic Collective Association (BSOC) is based in the Central Region of Ghana, one of the four most deprived regions in the country. The association comprises 80 pineapple farmers, including four women, who are members of four village-level collectives, namely Nanaben, Budukwaam Techyman, and Abor.
 

The village collectives first organised themselves into a group under the name Blue Skies Organic Collective Association in 1998. As its name suggests, this development was a collaboration with Blue Skies Products Limited, the farmers’ major trading partner, who the members supply with organic Sugar Loaf pineapples.

Blue Skies Products, a large-scale fruit processor, was a newly established company at the time and wanted to consolidate the trading relationships with its various small-scale local suppliers. Blue Skies Products helped BSOC put in place the systems and facilities required to be covered by EurepGap certification, required by major European retailers, as well as helping the farmers achieve organic certification by the Soil Association and Fairtrade certification. As well as organising the farmers into a collective, Blue Skies also built a series of collection points where pineapples would be taken from the field each day before being collected by a Blue Skies vehicle, free of charge.

Blue Skies Products was certified in January 2005 to supply processed pineapples to the Fairtrade market. They in turn promoted BSOC’s application for Fairtrade certification, which was approved in April 2005, so allowing Blue Skies to process and market the farmers’ Sugar Loaf pineapples to European supermarkets on Fairtrade terms. 

For Fairtrade purposes, BSOC have registered as a public limited company under guarantee, under the name BSOC Pineapple Growers’ Association.

BSOC members’ farms have a total of 112 ha (280 acres) given over to organic pineapples. They produce a total of 45 tonnes of pineapples a week of which 15 tonnes (33%) are supplied to Blue Skies. The remainder is bought by women traders from Accra who sell them to local markets. The members depend on pineapples for 85% of their cash income. Total exports were 780 tonnes in 2003 and 1,560 tonnes in 2004.

The average farm is around three hectares in size with 2 hectares under pineapples producing around 30 tonnes a year. About 0.75ha are used to grow maize and cassava for sale at the local market; vegetables for home consumption are grown on the remaining 0.25ha.

Fairtrade

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By supplying Blue Skies, BSOC members receive an agreed farm gate price. This exceeds the minimum price set by Fairtrade. This price is negotiated each year between Blue Skies and the BSOC. All pineapples that Blue Skies procures are purchased at the agreed price before they are cut and packed into products destined for retailers in Europe. Not all the products supplied by the BSOC are labelled Fairtrade, but for those that are, the Fairtrade premium is paid by the retailer which goes into a fund managed by the BSOC members. This premium is in addition to the agreed price paid to the farmers by Blue Skies. Economically, higher prices and premiums encourage the farmers to increase production and the quality of their crop.

The farmers’ live in relatively poor rural villages in one of the most deprived regions in Ghana and extra income from Fairtrade and Blue Skies certainly enhances the living standards of the communities.

To date, two boreholes have now been constructed using funds raised by the Fairtrade premium and with additional investment by Blue Skies and the Dutch retailer Albert Heijn. This is to solve the acute water supply problems within the four communities. In future, BSOC members would also like to provide public toilets and build local schools.

March 2008.