Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016

Issues in Transition -

Productivity Gains and

Increased Economic Value

This innovation process began in the field

where many lamented the “lack of labour” and

the “ageing farming population”. In truth, the

income derived from farming needs to be a lot

more attractive, and the livelihood more secure

and rewarding, for the younger generation to be

drawn into working in the cocoa sector. In order

to make this possible, more economic value

must be extracted from the crop by increasing

the value-added locally and regionally, and

increased productivities in the process must be

realised. Otherwise, these farmers will choose to

grow other more economically attractive crops

and their children will migrate from their rural

communities to urban areas, or beyond.

This re-imagining and restructuring of the

Caribbean fine cocoa industry needed to be done,

first and foremost, from the perspective of the

small farmer and his or her community. From this

perspective, the strategic transformation of the

sector has been in progress over the past five to six

years with a series of innovative projects secured

with European Union funding, in partnerships

conceived and led by the Caribbean Fine Cocoa

Forum (CFCF).

One of these projects,

RECREATE

(an acronym

for

-engineering the

ocoa

ural

conomy

through

gro-processing, eco-

ourism &

ntrepreneurship), provided proof of concept

of what was possible to improve lowproductivities

and poor operational efficiencies in cocoa fields.

Conventional labour models were replaced by

proven “industrial methodologies” based on

the application of modern power tools, ATV

vehicles, mobile technologies (e.g. 3G mobile

phones &GPS), specialisation of labour tasks and

management of trained, motivated teams.

The conventional “individual farmer labour

model” related to the cocoa growing and reaping

process was replaced with the designation of

small, mobile teams of trained specialists who

were equippedwithmodern power tools to prune,

treat and harvest the cocoa trees of numerous

small, adjacent farms. This new methodology

resulted in labour efficiency gains such that a

team of four workers could rehabilitate 2 acres

of cocoa fields a day instead of 0.5 acres per day

under the conventional labour model.

In addition, dramatic increases to cocoa bean

production were realised through multiple

concurrent interventions which resulted in

cocoa bean yields of up to four to five times

that of historical levels. These project initiatives

focused on providing proper field maintenance,

tree pruning, limited fertiliser application,

and timely harvesting, and field productivity

increased from 0.3 tonnes to 1.5 tonnes of cocoa

beans per hectare.

OUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE