2SCALE Thematic Papers Not By Technology and Money Alone | Page 25

9. Coordination
and collaboration:
Far from being
a waste of time
By Dieu-Donné
Konnon,
trainer-mentor, Benin
Key themes: Cluster and platform development, Sustainability of coaching services, Functional capacities
Pineapple-Benin
PPP
The partnership is
led by Promofruit, a
company that looks for
increasing its sourcing
of fresh pineapples from
smallholders organised
into POs to process
into juice for marketing
in several West African
countries.
Summary
This is a lively dialogue between a pineapple farmers’
organisation leader, Athanase, and his cousin, Marcel,
visiting from the north. With great patience and conviction,
Athanase finds argument after argument to convince his
sceptical cousin about the many benefits farmers have
achieved by being part of an ABC and pineapple platform
of the processing company Promofruit. Coaching support
comes out as a strong drive behind the positive changes.
The author re-enacts this dialogue based on the account of
it from one of the agribusiness coaches, Nina.
“You people of the South, you definitely prefer to make
speeches than to work! The last time I was here, you were
talking about capacity strengthening to have access to pro-
duction inputs – or was it on strengthening your business
relationships – I don’t remember exactly!”
Nina, the agribusiness coach, is a bit taken aback. She had
come to inform Athanase about the next coaching session
for the pineapple cluster which includes his farmers’ group
together with input and credit suppliers, extension officers
of the zone, as well as representatives of Promofruit, the
enterprise processing pineapple into juice. She found Atha-
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nase together with his cousin Marcel, who was visiting from
Alibori, a city in northern Benin. It was Marcel who made
the exclamation above.
But Athanase remains unfazed: “First of all, we are not
making speeches, that is for politicians. With the help of our
coach Nina, we discuss, exchange and reflect together with
all actors involved in the pineapple cluster to explore ways
to improve our business. As you know, we produce pineap-
ples for the juice processor, Promofruit, but that does not
mean that we are no longer interested in what happens with
our pineapples after they are transported away.”