Total Chocolate: Made in SVG

29.APR.11

by Oscar Allen



Supermarket consumers do not buy raw cacao/cocoa. What they want is chocolate and other cocoa products, and that is what we as farmers/investors in SVG must produce and sell.{{more}} Mr. Lampkin is right. We must not talk cocoa. We must talk chocolate. In this article, I want to examine what we have heard about the Mitchell and cocoa proposal and how we must replace it with our Vincentian chocolate proposal.



COCOA TALK

Starting from the top, there are about 4 major players in the proposal for a cocoa project in SVG. The way we understand business puts the foreign investor Armajaro as the cocoa controller. That company already seems to have big investment in cocoa – chocolate and it wants to invite and help people in SVG to supply it with cocoa. In this way, the Armajaro cocoa/chocolate business will grow its profits and people in SVG will get a piece.

The 2nd major player is the local business investor – the J. F Mitchell business, family or group. This Mitchell group has local political influence; it has friends among farmers (Mitchell is a former Prime Minister of 18 years, a politician of 45 years); it has international contacts. It is a significant business house. From this project, the Mitchell business will grow its projects; it will add to its business equity overseas; it will increase or cement the political clout it has locally; and it will help local businesses (and farmers) to get a piece.

The 3rd major player in the cocoa project is the state apparatus in SVG. What the state will do is give fiscal incentives, concessions and favors to the 1st two players – Armajaro and the Mitchell group, to make it easier for them and their project. The state will also take credit for diversifying the agriculture sector and the economy and making things get easier. The work of the state will be to help certify the projects of the Armajaro and Mitchell group. The earnings of the farmers will not always be certain. E.g. will there be crop insurance, a Fair Trade

Premium, a cost of production index tied to the price, a share of the enterprise equity for the growers?

In the present cocoa proposal, the cocoa farmers are the 4th major player. Growers will contribute land, labour, management (financial, technical, human resource associational, etc), according to investor demands, and hand over the cocoa product for further development and marketing to the investor. The grower gets payment for the undeveloped product, because that is all we can provide – an undeveloped product. That is what Armajaro, Mitchell and the State want us to do; produce raw material for others.



A, B, C TALK AND THE STATE

Just take a short step back with me into how the State operated when it ran our agriculture exports in Arrowroot and Banana (A + B). Arrowroot is a skin and bones industry at present. There is no flesh on it. It is grown for the starch which several arrowroot mills used to produce from the rhizomes. Today, we produce too little arrowroot to supply even local demand. In the latter days of the full blown industry, arrowroot starch was piled up from year to year, because marketing was ineffective, inefficient and corrupted in the hands of state and party officials. Banana went through several phases in its 56-year history as a modern industry. That state operates in the industry today as the sole owner of the export arm of the industry. The WIBDECO/WINFRESH banana enterprise never fails to make a profit. The dividends, earned from the farmers’ toil, go into state pockets in St. Lucia, Dominica and SVG; although it was the farmers’ earnings which went to pay off for the purchase of the Geest banana company by WIBDECO.

To talk about cocoa in the same breath as you talk about the state and export agriculture is to invite trouble. That is why when we come to cocoa/chocolate, we must speak a new language about a new agriculture-business enterprise.



CHOCOLATE TALK

The Agenda for Chocolate Talk in SVG must be based on these following principles:



1. Cocoa/chocolate must be a total high quality Vincentian industry and enterprise.



2. We must grow the cocoa, process the beans, produce the chocolate confectionery and other items, and market our special brands.



3. We must organize ourselves into a cocoa/chocolate company owned by Vincentian growers and associates.



4. We must identify and claim the assistance and resources that we need from the state (local and subregional), the technical, financial, legal and industry infrastructures and



5. We must say: Yes We Can. That is our agenda for planning.