Sir James to seeking technical assistance from Ghana for Cocoa

Sir James Mitchell is to seek technical assistance for the St. Vincent and the Grenadines cocoa project from Ghana.{{more}}

Sir James, this country’s prime minister from 1984 to 2000, is presently in China attending the 30th annual plenary meeting of the InterAction Council, a group of former heads of state and government.

Sir James told SEARCHLIGHT in an interview last week that while in China, he intends to speak with former President of Ghana Jerry Rawlings, about the possibility of getting technical assistance from Ghana for the local cocoa project.

Rawlings was president of Ghana from 1993 to 2001.

Sir James said the cocoa project here is going well, and at present, research is being conducted to see which variety of cocoa would be suited for growing in St. Vincent.

He said the response from farmers here has been good, although he admitted that some people continue to be “negative about the project”.

Sir James said cocoa is a “great project”, which attracts great prices on the world market.

Although the price of cocoa has fallen in recent times, Sir James said the present price of $2,300 a tonne is still “good money for us here in St. Vincent,” since one gets two to three tonnes per acre.

“People talking alot of things like we should have value added. You know, you can have some value added and do some little things here, but where is the market for all this value added?” he asked.

“Grenada does a little thing to amuse the tourists… it doesn’t use up 10 per cent of Grenada’s production,” he said.

Sir James explained that the purchasing company (Armajaro) will be purchasing all cocoa from the farmers in their wet state.

“They have to be in charge of the entire processing, because it all has to be certified. They will be buying the cocoa in the wet state… and they will have driers, because everything has to be meticulously quality controlled from the word go, because we want to produce the best.”

Sir James was instrumental in establishing contact for this country with officials from Armajaro Trading Company, one of the world’s largest traders in cocoa.

Cocoa is Ghana’s largest cash crop and accounts for 11 per cent of the production of cocoa in the world. The crop was introducted to Ghana 90 years ago and grows on vast plantations.