QUITO, ECUADOR 23RD
NOV 2019
Whilst travelling through South America last year, Angus Kennedy was invited to do an exclusive interview with Xavier Lazo Guerrero, the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of the Ecuadorian Government – discussing the rich history of the country’s cocoa, the issues that surround its produce and the challenges facing the chocolate trade affecting the country and around the world today.
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Angus Kennedy: It’s a great pleasure to meet you and in this wonderful location in Quito too, thank you. Xavier, please can you tell me about your position in the Ecuadorian Government and what your responsibilities are?
Xavier Lazo Guerrero: On behalf of the Government, it’s our pleasure to welcome you here to Ecuador Angus. Yes, I have been the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock for Ecuador since August 2018, developing stable and long- term policies with several programs including, technical assistance and promoting exports of our products, mainly as premium and sustainable.
AK: That’s quite a responsibility. Please could share with our readers a little bit of background about the cocoa industry in Ecuador?
XLG: Well, there was a recent archaeological study that found our homegrown rainforest cocoa beans to be over 5,000 years old, which is 3,000 more years than the oldest findings in Mexico. So, the history of cocoa in Ecuador is quite detailed as we are sure to say that cocoa and its use are originally from this beautiful land.
KennedysConfection.com
During colonization, cocoa was one of the main exports to Europe, and the money coming from it financed the armies for our independence around the 1820’s. It remained the main export (at the same time we were the world’s largest exporter) for 100 years until around 1916-1920, where two factors hit us very hard – the effects of WWI dropped demand and prices, and a little later, the arrival of diseases wiped most of the plantations. We still remained producers of high-quality cocoa, but in small volumes (around 80k MT per year) until 20 years ago where a second boom of cocoa began. This was mainly thanks to a new variety of cocoa, the CCN- 51, which is highly productive and resistant to diseases, so now, we are the third largest exporter with 320k MT per year. Today, cocoa is the third largest non-oil export after shrimp and bananas worth around $750 million per year.
AK: Yes I was reading that history too, I can’t wait to see the Amazon when I come back in February 2020. Can you give me some statistics about the industry/production?
Kennedy’s Confection January 2020 49
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