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UCLS brings together 22 cooperatives from Haut Sambirano, a cocoa-growing region in northwest Madagascar. These cooperatives have 450 members, 22% of whom are women. The cocoa marketed by Union is fine and renowned.
Despite its considerable natural resources, Madagascar has one of the highest poverty rates in the world: 70% of the island’s inhabitants live below the poverty line, 85% of them in rural areas. Madagascar’s economy is essentially based on agriculture. The country is also highly vulnerable to climate change.
The economic development facilitated by the UCLS has had a strong impact on the smallest producers, who have seen their incomes improve. Most of them also grow other crops, primarily for their own consumption. Their situation is more favourable than that of the majority of farmers on the Grande Ile, particularly those involved in food production. One of the main strengths of the UCLS is the support it provides to its members in adopting profoundly agro-ecological practices: use of bio-fertilisers and bio-pesticides; crop associations with trees to store water and fix nitrogen. These practices contribute in part to resilience in the face of climate change affecting rainfall: the storage of water by banana trees, for example, provides cocoa trees with water reserves.
