Our Story
In 2019, Mr. Robert Teiko moved from Accra to Wasa Obing, Western Ghana, to work as a community extension agent with cocoa farmers and experience rural living. During this time, he discovered that labour availability was a barrier for many Vulnerable Cocoa Farmers (VCF), who were largely elderly and female. These farmers' over-reliance on caretakers for farm maintenance activities has always resulted in a significant decrease in farm productivity due to poor supervision, among other issues.
So, when the opportunity arose in 2022 to pursue a master's degree in Food and Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, Mr Teiko focused the majority of his scholarly works, including his dissertation, on cocoa production in Ghana. He initially understood the climate crisis as a "wicked problem".
In retrospect, he recalled that popular "Ebunu" practices among some rural workforce, as the primary entrance channel into the cocoa sector, are clearly contributing to this issue through deforestation and vegetative land clearing.
By 2023, he had finished his master's program with the big question: How can rural labour be engaged in cocoa cultivation without infringing on tropical forest, while also assisting VCFs in enhancing cocoa production sustainably? In order to answer this question, the caretaker business model was developed and trailed on third(30) hectares of cocoa farmland owned by twelve (12) VCFs in 2024. Following a successful outcome, Ethical Sourcing and Sustainable Agri Contractors (ESSAC) Ltd was incorporated in the United Kingdom in 2025.
