Fol­low­ing an ex­cel­lent crop for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2012, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2013, the Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board (CCIB) has in­creased the price of co­coa (dry bean) to $20 per kilo­gram for Grade I co­coa. The wet co­coa bean will be bought at $7 per kilo­gram ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 1, 2013.This price in­crease took ef­fect on Feb­ru­ary 1. The CCIB will pay farm­ers retroac­tive­ly from Oc­to­ber 1, 2013 to Jan­u­ary 31.In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Food Pro­duc­tion Min­istry said due to the in­creas­ing cost of pro­duc­tion, co­coa farm­ers have been con­tin­u­ous­ly ask­ing for price in­creas­es. "In re­sponse to their call, the CCIB has giv­en in­creas­es of five per cent in crop year 2012/2013 and six per cent in crop year 2013/2014, there­by ben­e­fit­ting ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,700 farm­ers," the min­istry said.

T&T's world renown co­coa con­tin­ues to en­joy suc­cess at the Co­coa of Ex­cel­lence (COE), In­ter­na­tion­al Co­coa Awards in Paris, France. Two sam­ples from La Re­union Es­tate were among the top 50 high qual­i­ty sam­ples and T&T al­so se­cured an ac­co­lade for the fine or flavour Trini­tario co­coa beans, win­ning one of the 15 In­ter­na­tion­al Co­coa Awards for the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion.The min­is­ter con­grat­u­lat­ed Har­ry­man Chat­ter­goon of the Tabaquite Co­coa Fer­men­tary, Tabaquite, af­ter two sam­ples sent from the Fer­men­tary se­cured places in the top 50 high qual­i­ty sam­ples, rep­re­sent­ing the best flavour, qual­i­ty and ge­net­ic ori­gin.The CCIB was es­tab­lished by the Co­coa and Cof­fee Act 1961 Chap­ter 64:20 and is man­dat­ed to "se­cure the most favourable arrange­ments for the pur­chase, sale, han­dling, grad­ing, ex­por­ta­tion and mar­ket­ing of co­coa and cof­fee for the ben­e­fit of the co­coa and cof­fee in­dus­try."