March 2012 C&CI • Latin America • 31
it’s not as if they are introducing a new crop. They have a lot of know-how, improved plant- ing material and pest-resistant varieties. These are all very important things to consider for a Brazilian cocoa recovery to happen," he said. In the Caribbean, farmers are increasingly switching from traditional export crops such as sugar and bananas to food crops such as vegetables or export crops with higher income-earning potential, such as cocoa. Just as growers on islands such as
Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe have marketed their coffee as souvenirs for tourists, so farmers see an opportunity to do the same with home-grown chocolate.
Paolo Volpi wants to promote the development of high quality artisanal chocolate produced in Brazil
The intense efforts on renovating the local industry in Ecuador has got many people in the sector debating whether Ecuador can challenge Brazil as the largest producer in Latin America, but it is the region’s smaller growers that have caused the biggest sur- prise in the market in the last years.
Coffee farmers also growing cocoa
Thanks to initiatives by private growers in Brazil, production there is also on the increase and, based on latest figures, new areas plant- ed in the last two years could add around 20,000 tonnes to the market in the next five years.
"I have 90 hectares altogether, of which 32 are coffee and seven are planted with cocoa, with 9,000 cocoa trees. They first started pro- ducing four years ago and today they pro- duce enough for 15 bags of cocoa," said Paulo Oliari, a grower in the state of Espiritu Santo, who works the family plot together with his father.
Mr Oliari said he expects production to pick up soon, however. "At the moment 50 per cent of all the trees are new and they haven’t entered production yet, but by the next har- vest we expect to have 100 bags, and when all the trees enter into production over the next four years our output will increase to 300 bags," he explained.
Growing cocoa for
the domestic market Mr Oliari started growing cocoa after reading a story about the decline in production in Brazil and how the country was importing
most of the cocoa it needed.
"Brazil is importing 70 per cent of the cocoa we need from West Africa, and the cocoa we are importing is not as good as we can pro- duce here. In the next 10 years we will be able to become competitive in the local market," Mr Oliari told C&CI. He said that in the last few years the local cocoa area had expanded to 14,000 hectares and that by 2020 the expectation is that the area will have increased to 25,000 hectares. Paulo Volpi, who works on the Incafe research institute’s 80-hectare farm in the Marilandia region in the central part of the state, said that while the area’s 1,200 produc- ers are primarily dedicated to coffee, a grow- ing number of them are also getting into cocoa. Moreover, as he also explained, grow- ers are getting a lot of support from the state agriculture ministry and from the private sec- tor, which is interested in developing the local cocoa industry.
"Our cost of production is higher than else- where so it’s cheaper for Nestlé here in Espiritu Santo to import most of its cocoa needs from West Africa. However, we want to promote the development of chocolate pro- duced in a more ‘artisanal’ way for the local market, Mr Volpi told C&CI.
Well-placed to
regain market share Robert Peck at the WCF says the develop- ments in Espirito Santo are "not surprising." Brazil is uniquely positioned to reclaim a sig- nificant portion of its market share, not just in Latin America but in the overall world cocoa production.
"Brazil is one of the countries that has huge potential. It has a history of growing cocoa so
"When cocoa prices returned to all-time highs recently it rekindled interest in the prod- uct in the islands, as did the demise of the banana sector," Vernon Barrett, a Project Manager at the Fine-Flavored Cocoa Forum said in a recent report.
Recovering lost volume
At premiums of two or even three times the market price, the newly established forum is working to recover some of the volumes lost in the Caribbean. Mr Barrett said a three-year programme, funded by the European Union, is focusing on production in Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, St Lucia and the Dominican Republic.
According to official statistics, production in most of the tiny island nations is small, just 400 tonnes in Jamaica, 700 tonnes in Trinidad and Tobago, and even smaller vol- umes in other islands. The one exception as far as volume is concerned is the Dominican Republic.
"The Dominican Republic is a big produc- ing country in the region and they export a lot of organic cocoa. About half of the cocoa they grow is organic and that accounts for about 50 per cent of the certified cocoa in the world," Mr Peck explained.
Describing the country as "a small country but a very efficient producer" Mr Peck said that, according to figures compiled by the WCF, the Dominican Republic expects to see production increase to 56 tonnes in the 2011- 2012 harvest, up from 55 tonnes last year and up 10 per cent on the last five years. Output in 2007-2008 was just 52 tonnes. Depite the small size of the crops grown on island such as these, there is every reason to be optimistic about the future, said Mr Peck. "There are a lot of positive developments in cocoa going on in Latin America and the Caribbean today," he concluded. ■ C&CI
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