Accounting Practices Of Cacao Farmers In Southern Belize

The Toledo district of southern Belize suffers from extremely high poverty rates and many living in this region do not make enough money in order to feed themselves and their families a healthy daily calorie intake. A strengthening cacao industry has lowered poverty rates in recent years, but this industry is facing problems of its own. Farmers have no method to keep track of costs and income making it difficult to budget their resources and run their farms efficiently and effectively. Also the industry is becoming stagnant because growers associations cannot attract new farmers because there is no financial information available to reassure new farmers that the risk of the initial investment will reap rewards in the future. By looking at the geography, culture, and economy of this region, I developed an Excel based accounting system for these farmers to use and a method to implement it into the cacao industry. The system will help farmers keep track of the spending and profits and also give the growers associations access to the financial information they have been needing. This will grow the cacao industry and therefore help alleviate poverty in Toledo.