No Hurdle is Too High for this Cocoa Entrepreneur

Tell Kpomin Minrienne Kole Edi she cannot do something, and she is likely to prove you wrong. A successful farmer and entrepreneur in Côte d’Ivoire, she’s spent her entire life breaking barriers. Although her country is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa, it has few women-owned cocoa farms, so the fact that she helms her own makes her an outlier.

Her determination was spurred early. The youngest in her family, Edi had to convince her father to give her a small chunk of “wasteland” from his cocoa farm, which was all that remained after her siblings had inherited the arable land. But before long, she had turned the abandoned plot into a lush growing space.

While other women cultivated subsistence crops, Edi focused on those she could sell, like cocoa, coffee, and teak. The income she generated was welcome, but she really did it to prove herself. Although she was training to become a secretary at the time, the pull of entrepreneurship ultimately proved too strong. “I wanted to work for myself,” she says.

And now she’s helping other women do the same, via an association she founded that offers farm training. The group has since evolved into a cocoa cooperative that Edi chairs.

But wait, there’s more. Edi’s achievements couldn’t possibly fit into this space, so her story will continue in our next issue. Stay tuned…