Asumura Rural Service Centre brings support closer to cocoa farmers with Walmart Foundation funding

The new facility will connect practical farming services with community-led governance to support a climate-resilient, deforestation-free cocoa landscape.

Cocoa farmers in Asumura and surrounding communities will have greater access to technical training and farm-management support following Proforest’ commissioning of a new Rural Service Centre in Ghana’s Ahafo Region. The Centre will help farmers improve productivity, strengthen climate resilience and protect forests, while providing a local platform for communities to participate in landscape governance.

Established under the Building Deforestation-free Climate Resilient Cocoa Landscape programme with funding from the Walmart Foundation, the Centre brings practical farmer services and support for community leadership together in one place. It will also support local participation in social and environmental governance, connecting sustainable cocoa production with decisions about how the wider landscape is managed.

The facility builds on Proforest’ first Rural Service Centre at Dadiesoaba in the Asutifi South District, commissioned in 2024. The new Asumura centre extends this approach to support more farmers in the region. Collaboration across the landscape is central to this approach. The Centre provides a local platform for community leadership and engagement with government, development partners and the private sector, linking support for farmers with shared efforts to promote responsible land use and forest protection.

Hon. Joseph Akparibo, Municipal Chief Executive of Asunafo North, noted that the project is being carried out within the framework of the Ghana Cocoa Forest REDD+ Programme (GCFRP) and aligns with the Government’s Agriculture for Economic Transformation Agenda and its flagship Feed Ghana Programme. 

Abraham Baffoe, Global and Africa Director, Proforest; highlighted the importance of collective action: 

Through our collective efforts, we are demonstrating that sustainable production, environmental stewardship, and community development can go hand in hand. Let us continue to demonstrate that together, we can build a prosperous, climate-resilient, and deforestation-free landscape for current and future generations.”

The Walmart Foundation’s funding supports this combination of practical farmer services and local landscape governance. “We are very proud to support this work and look forward to seeing how farmers use it to help grow more sustainable cocoa and how the community uses it to help advance local governance of the landscape initiative”, said Simon Hall, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Walmart Foundation.

By bringing farmer support and community-led governance closer together, the Asumura Rural Service Centre will help translate collaboration into practical support for sustainable cocoa production.