Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016 - 2017

OUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

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 RE -engineering the C ocoa R ural E conomy through A gro-processing, eco- T ourism & E 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.

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