This week, a group of ONE staff are traveling through Africa in hopes to better understand, and witness firsthand the extreme poverty we’re all trying to end. This learning tour will bring ONE staff through such countries as Ghana and Nigeria. During their travels, some staff members will be blogging about their experience with videos and pictures about what they’re seeing on the ground. Today’s first post is from Aaron Banks:

Mr. Otaku, the owner of the farm we visited, shows us a ripe cocoa pod.

Our ONE staff trip to Africa got off to a great start, with chocolate…or at least the cocoa it’s made from. In our first morning in Ghana, we travelled to a cocoa farm a few hours outside of the capital of Accra to see how the world’s favorite indulgence – and Ghana’s top agricultural export – is grown. According to the folks we met with, the cocoa industry directly or indirectly employs 20% of the population of this West African nation. All of whom are quick to remind you that cocoa is one of the few commodities in the world that gets a higher price depending on country of origin, with cocoa from Ghana commanding a higher price in the global market, because it is considered to be the best in the world.

We travelled with our friends from Technoserve, an NGO that works with developing world farmers to help them grow sustainably, by taking advantage of technological advances to increase yields and by supporting their efforts to become more entrepreneurial. Technoserve introduced us to a group of cocoa farmers called Cocoa Abrabopa, who are working with Technoserve to revolutionize their agricultural practices – many farmers are already doubling their yields – and build better, poverty-free lives for themselves and their communities. For more, you can watch my slightly jet-lagged commentary, ably-shot in the back of a bouncing bus by ONE’s Chandler Smith, and check out the accompanying pictures.

-Aaron Banks

Check out more pictures below!

Cocoa is a shade-grown crop that lends itself to small farms, most only a few hectares.

Chocolate lovers beware: the contents have a viscous coating that tastes a little like mango, but bite down and the flavor is bitter, with no relation to chocolate.

After it’s picked, the cocoa beans are wrapped in banana leaves and left to ferment on the forest floor, with occasional stirring so to add air to the mixture. I got up close and can assure you that the strong smell – not to mention the bugs – bears no relation to the chocolate so many of us know and love.

After fermentation, the cocoa beans are dried at camps like this, which did smell faintly of rich, dark chocolate, before being weighed, bagged and shipped.