Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Glob­al co­coa prices are climb­ing steadi­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al de­mand for the valu­able pro­duce re­mains high, yet mil­lions of T&T's finest co­coa beans are rot­ting in the fields.

More than 1,700 co­coa farm­ers across the coun­try are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties get­ting ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers as the new Co­coa De­vel­op­ment Board has failed to set up mech­a­nisms for ex­port.

In the mean­time, more than 4,000 work­ers on co­coa es­tates have been laid off and 40 tonnes of co­coa, which could bring in valu­able for­eign ex­change, are wast­ing away.

Co­coa beans stored ay the Ma­coya mar­ket have been dry­ing up while hun­dreds of farm­ers have had to leave co­coa pods in the fields.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, vice pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Co­coa Al­lied Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Os­car Cadet said the prob­lems start­ed in 2015 when then min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj abol­ished the Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board of T&T which was es­tab­lished by Act 20 of 1961 with a man­date to "se­cure the most favourable arrange­ments for the pur­chase of co­coa and cof­fee."

"Pre­vi­ous­ly we used to sell the co­coa through in­ter­na­tion­al bro­kers. We had about $30 mil­lion in as­sets un­der the board but when Min­is­ter Ma­haraj re­pealed the leg­is­la­tion, $10 mil­lion of that was used to set up the Co­coa De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny," Cadet said.

With the change in gov­ern­ment, the old board was fired and Cadet said it took sev­er­al months be­fore a new board was put in place.

Sev­en months lat­er, the board has failed to or­gan­ise ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets jeop­ar­dis­ing more than 40 tonnes of co­coa.

At a time when T&T is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion, Cadet said he is sur­prised that lit­tle is be­ing done to save the in­dus­try.

Cadet said many farm­ers do not have the knowl­edge and ex­per­tise to sell their pro­duce to in­ter­na­tion­al buy­ers as the process is long and bu­reau­crat­ic.

"The buy­ing agents have in­ter­na­tion­al link­ages and there is a lot of pa­per­work in­volved in ship­ping the co­coa and the ma­jor­i­ty of farm­ers don't know what to do or where to start," he said.

While the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry has con­tact­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion and sug­gest­ed sev­er­al names for new ap­pointees, the process is tak­ing too long and farm­ers are los­ing out.

"There are been about 4,000 peo­ple who work in the co­coa fields that did not get any work this sea­son be­cause if you don't have a buy­er, it makes no sense spend­ing mon­ey to har­vest the co­coa and it re­mains to rot.

"We had hoped the min­istry would meet with the farm­ers ear­ly o'clock but the crop is go­ing to fin­ish the end of this month and noth­ing is in place yet. We have to wait un­til next year for the co­coa to grow again," Cadet said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said the in­dus­try is in jeop­ardy be­cause Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat and his "side­kick" Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Avinash Singh are clue­less about how the min­istry should be run.

He said the abo­li­tion of the Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board was done through con­sul­ta­tion with farm­ers and the leg­is­la­tion was re­pealed so that T&T's fine-flavoured co­coa beans could be mar­ket­ed ag­gres­sive­ly abroad.

"We re­alised that we had the best co­coa in the world and co­coa was a com­mod­i­ty that was main­tain­ing high prices and glob­al de­mand, so we de­cid­ed to change the leg­is­la­tion to make the Act more mar­ket friend­ly be­cause pre­vi­ous­ly the Act was very colo­nial.

"You couldn't sell on a Sun­day and all sales had to go through the gov­ern­ment. The bu­reau­cra­cy was not cus­tomer friend­ly," Ma­haraj said.

He said the new Co­coa De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny ex­pe­ri­enced bu­reau­crat­ic prob­lems and there was a staffing prob­lem.

"We tried to re­vive the in­dus­try by putting a more dy­nam­ic sys­tem in place but all of that fell when this gov­ern­ment took over," Ma­haraj said.

"The new com­pa­ny was sup­posed to be a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion board. They will grade the co­coa and they know what kind of beans you have and what kind of price they will fetch.

"The new com­pa­ny could buy from more than one farmer and sell a big amount. It was set up to be more dy­nam­ic and mar­ket ori­ent­ed,."

How­ev­er, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Avinash Singh said he voiced con­cerns when the Act was re­pealed.

He said the dis­band­ing of the Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board had re­lieved the State of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to source mar­kets buy and sell co­coa.

Singh said Ramb­harat is in ac­tive dis­cus­sions with the co­coa farm­ers to find a so­lu­tion.

Ramb­harat, in an ear­li­er in­ter­view, said the Co­coa De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny can­not func­tion like the old board.

"The gov­ern­ment named a board for the com­pa­ny sev­er­al weeks ago. The chair­man is Win­ston Rud­der. He has been work­ing on sev­er­al mat­ters.

"The board in­cludes Win­ston Rud­der, Carlisle Pem­ber­ton, Jacque­line Rawl­ins, Glen Beck­les and Fitz­clarence Wal­dropt."

The min­is­ter said co­coa farm­ers con­tin­ue to act as though the new board will do what the pre­vi­ous Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board did.

"The sys­tem in which the State bought and ex­port­ed co­coa no longer ex­ists. It end­ed with the re­peal of the Co­coa and Cof­fee In­dus­try Board Act," Ramb­harat said. He added that dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing with farm­ers to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion.