Cocoa, coffee export on the rise

Published: Monday August 18, 2008

The export of cocoa and coffee is making a comeback, according to chairman of the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation, (NAMDEVCO), Noel Garcia.

Garcia, who was the feature speaker at NAMDEVCO’s Agribusiness workshop, Strengthening Capacity for Agribusiness Development and Marketing, at the auditorium of the T&T Bureau of Standards, Macoya Industrial Estate, Macoya, said market prices had been rising.

“Surprisingly cocoa and coffee have suddenly re-emerged as major exporters,” he said.

Noting that local coffee had once “enjoyed a special position” in the international market “because of its flavour,” Garcia said labour issues and fluctuating prices had over the years led to farms being abandoned and a subsequent fall in the nation’s export of the two crops.

He said, however, that there is now an attempt to resucitate the industry in an effort to capitalise on market prices.

“Cocoa has been one of the more traditional crops that have been grown and you had large cocoa estates everywhere in Trinidad: East Trinidad, Paria, Central, La Vega Estate in Grand Couva, in South you have in Maruga,” he said.

“The Cocoa and Coffee Board in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture are resucitating those abandoned estates because cocoa prices are now the highest for a long, long, time also coffee,” Garcia said.

Adding that the comeback is not without its own problems, Garcia said that T&T may have to look to the region to satisfy the labour needs related to these crops.

“The problem, however, is that again the labour issues which may have to be solved by bringing in labour from Caricom, because we have a shortage of labour,” he said,

Garcia said, “With Namdevco we have some marketing and technical issues to resolve but quite a lot of emphasis is being placed on cocoa and coffee. In fact, the CEO of the Agricultural Development Bank is now the chairman of the Cocoa and Coffee Board.”

Mechanisation

Answering questions about the possible mechanisation of the crops, Garcia said it would be nearly impossible mechanise the whole process and what could be done would be largely limited to farms.

“Cocoa is grown on slopes and in shaded environments so it is almost impossible,” he said. “What you could mechanise is instead of having to dance on the cocoa beans ... but in terms of the actual production, keeping the trees clean, harvesting, it it would be impossible.”

He said: “Mechanisation lends itself to large areas and in Trinidad, typically, our farm sizes are between ten and 15 acres. There are some between 14 and 15 large farms which would be between 50-200 acres, but again that is rare and under 200 acres or even a 100 to put a mechanised harvester does not make sense.”

Garcia said the answer to T&T’s food and nutrition security was “to move along the value chain - not just as primary producer but get into agri-processing.”

He said the government should help farmers become more competitive in the international marketplace.


Source: Trinidad Guardian Newspapers
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business2.html