Ashanti Region, Ghana · Est. 1998

Twenty-seven harvests,
one association.

Gyase Farmers Association began with three families sharing a single cutlass and a cocoa dryer. Today, 312 households across six zones plant, harvest and sell together — keeping more of what the land gives back inside the community.

Become a Member Read Our Story

Farming zones

312

Member households

Crops grown at scale

A Gyase Farmers Association member walking through a cocoa farm at sunrise

Sacks of dried cocoa beans stacked at the Gyase depot

Rain gauge: 118mm

Recorded this week, Zone 2 depot

CocoaCassavaMaizePlantainGarden EggsOil PalmYamPepperCocoaCassavaMaizePlantainGarden EggsOil PalmYamPepper

312

Member households across six farming zones

1,840

Acres under shared cultivation this season

GH₵ 41.60

Average price per bag secured above market rate

Years since three families first pooled their harvest

Founding members of the Gyase Farmers Association meeting under a mango tree

1998

Three families first shared a cocoa dryer under the old mango tree at Gyase junction.

Our Story

Built at a kitchen table, still run the same way

In the dry season of 1998, Opanin Kwaku Sarfo and two neighbouring households pooled their cocoa harvest to afford a shared dryer rather than each losing beans to the rains. That single arrangement grew, zone by zone, into what is now the Gyase Farmers Association — a registered cooperative of 312 households spanning six farming zones around the Gyase and Nkwanta roads.

We are still governed the way we started: an elected executive of nine, re-seated every two years at an open meeting under that same mango tree, answerable to every paying member and no one else.

Farmer-owned

No outside shareholders. Surplus is reinvested or paid back to members each December.

Locally governed

Nine elected officers, two-year terms, one member one vote at the annual meeting.

What We Grow

Eight crops, twelve blocks, one calendar

Every zone plants to a shared rotation agreed each January, so the depot always has something moving to market and no single crop failure sinks a household.

Cocoa

Our founding crop, still the heartbeat of Gyase

Fermented and sun-dried on raised beds behind the old mission school, then graded together before it ever leaves the district.

Cassava & Gari

Processed at our own mill in Nkwanta

Roasted in-house so members keep the milling margin instead of trucking raw tubers to town.

Maize

Rotated with legumes to rest the soil

Stored in our communal silo with moisture meters shared across all twelve blocks.

Garden Eggs & Pepper

The Tuesday market crop

Harvested twice weekly by our women’s growing circle and sold fresh at Konongo market.

How We Work

From shared soil to a single sale

Land is pooled, not divided

Members register their plots with the association so we can plan rotations, shade cover and access roads as one farm instead of three hundred small ones.

Inputs bought together

Fertiliser, seedlings and tools are ordered in bulk each March through our supply committee, cutting per-bag cost by nearly a third.

Labour rotates by zone

Nnoboa work groups move from farm to farm at planting and harvest, so no single household carries a season alone.

Produce sold as one lot

Graded and bulked at the Gyase depot, then sold direct to millers and licensed buyers who pay the association rate, not the roadside price.

Members

In their own words

“Before the association, I sold my cocoa to whoever passed on a bicycle. Now the depot weighs it, and I know the price before I even carry the bags there.”
Kwabena Asante-Darko
Cocoa farmer, Zone 3, member since 2009

“The nnoboa group cleared my late husband’s farm in a single weekend. I would still be paying labourers I couldn’t afford without them.”
Abena Serwaa
Cassava grower, Zone 1, member since 2014

“Our garden egg circle sells at the Tuesday market as one stall now instead of six. We split the till the same evening, in front of everyone.”
Yaa Frimpomaa
Vegetable grower, Zone 5, member since 2018

Farming a plot near Gyase? There is a place for it in the rotation.

Membership costs GH₵ 60 a year and opens shared tools, bulk inputs, nnoboa labour and depot pricing to your household.

Start Your Application

Get In Touch

Visit the depot, or send word ahead

The executive meets every Wednesday morning at the Gyase depot to take new membership applications and hear zone reports. Drop by, or send us your details and a committee member will reply within the week.

Depot: Gyase Junction, off the Konongo–Kumasi road, Ashanti Region
Meetings: Wednesdays, 8:00am, at the depot hall
Phone: +233 24 118 6602 (Secretary, Ama Boatemaa)

Twenty-seven harvests,one association.