A new cocoa economy may be on the horizon, as people from farmers to researchers start to explore the possibilities of local cocoa, and seek to revitalise and diversify T&T's cocoa industry and cocoa-related livelihoods.
These ideas were evident at the recent World Cocoa and Chocolate Day event at UWI, St Augustine, held on October 1, where hundreds of visitors not only tasted delicious local chocolate and cocoa-infused treats, but also got a chance to learn about the valuable work of the Cocoa Research Centre and its exciting plans to build a Cocoa Innovation Centre in Mount Hope.
Visitors to the increasingly popular event also encountered a variety of ways to earn a livelihood from cocoa, whether as a farmer, a creator of unique food products such as a chocolatier, a manufacturer of soaps and cosmetics, or as an owner or worker in an agrotourism enterprise.
Bishop Victor Phillip is a cocoa entrepreneur who is one of several people interested in the agrotourism side of cocoa. Others already in this business who participated in the World Cocoa and Chocolate Day included Ortinola Estate of Maracas Valley, St Joseph, and Mariposa Gardens of Lopinot.
Bishop Victor Phillip spoke to the T&T Guardian about his business idea. Phillip is a businessman, farmer and estate owner who wants to revitalise cocoa production in Moruga. A man with varied experience in construction and garment manufacturing enterprises, he became seduced by cocoa from as far back as the 1980s when he studied cocoa production at farm school in Centeno.
He said he'd been through a four-year training programme at the former Management Development Centre (MDC). The MDC was founded in the 1970s and funded by the World Bank to provide business management training; it no longer exists.
"After your training, you could go to IDC and get funding.... So I did, and I set up a garment factory, and supplied Kirpalanis, and Stephen & Johnsons, and exported to Venezuela and Barbados....I also worked in a construction firm, and in agriculture. I was a product of the old school of training entrepreneurs," he explained.
Phillip later bought a ten-acre cocoa estate. He is proud of the large size of the pods on his cocoa trees. Phillip's vision is to fuse indigenous cocoa products with cocoa estate ecotourism. His business brand is Hills of Rock River: Moruga's Finest Cocoa.
He plans to both grow cocoa and make cocoa products, while also offering "tourism from the fields" from his estate, where visitors can vacation in comfort while they gain firsthand experience of a cocoa farm, with tours, talks and involvement in some aspects of production.
Phillip's business plan involves pruning existing older cocoa trees and replanting Trinitario TSH selected hybrids (clones from crosses between Amazonian, Forastero and Trinitario cocoa varieties). The TSH hybrids, he said, produce higher yields and are more disease resistant.
The only thing currently holding the project back, said Phillip, is lack of good access roads in Moruga.
Previously, Phillip said, National Petroleum had maintained the area's roads, but this stopped when they capped their wells there. Phillips told the Guardian he was hoping Government would help to provide this necessary infrastructure in the area, and observed there were at least 15 other Moruga farmers who, along with him, suffered from the lack of access roads, which has helped spur abandonment of most of the old cocoa farms in Moruga in the past ten years.
"Once I have access roads, I am ready for the project, and for production," said Phillip.
"You have to actually encourage the cocoa farmers to come back. It's only when they see someone doing something that is making sense, that they will come back," he said. "Open up the roads, we'll start production, and agriculture will start back in Moruga."
Cocoa Research Centre plans
new Cocoa Innovation Centre
At the heart of last week's cocoa and chocolate expo was the UWI Cocoa Research Centre, which launched the event four years ago and has been organising it ever since. Visitors got the opportunity to learn about the work of the centre through several infographic displays and an interesting scale model of projected future construction.
The UWI Cocoa Research Centre does research in cacao pathology (diseases) and molecular diagnostics, and also supports cocoa entrepreneurs through training, estate rehabilitation, flavour profiling, agro-technology and other help. It runs some very popular chocolate-making courses every other month, which are often sold out and require advance booking. And there are exciting plans for a state-of-the-art Cocoa Innovation Centre to soon be built on land at Mount Hope.
The Cocoa Research Centre also manages the International Cocoa Genebank, Trinidad, which is one of the world's most diverse collections of cacao germplasm. It is a centre of excellence with more than 2,000 varieties of cocoa. Designated a Universal Collection by Bioversity International, the actual Genebank consists of cocoa trees growing on a 100-acre site which was originally part of the La Reunion Estate at Centeno/La Chaguaramas, about 5 km from Piarco Airport.
T&T Guardian spoke to Romina Umaharan, a pathologist at the Cocoa Research Centre, who's been working there since 1995.
"This is our fourth year of running the World Cocoa and Chocolate Day event," said Umaharan, who said the event has grown in response to the many people keen on getting into cocoa-related businesses, from farming to downstream value-added products like chocolate and other food items.
So what, exactly, is the value of the Cocoa Research Centre's cocoa gene bank? Umaharan explained:
"It conserves cacao germplasm in one place, for posterity. You cannot keep cacao in a museum: the seeds will die and it will lose its vitality. We are now losing a lot of indigenous cacao material in the Amazon–some of that was brought to Trinidad from the 1930s onwards, and was collected here, as we are the largest recognised international gene bank. We collaborate with all institutions that do cacao research–so we supply their raw material
for research."
This has included, since 1923, the distribution of enhanced plant material to improve cocoa
strains, which has formed the basis of breeding programmes in
many countries.
Umaharan was especially excited about plans for a new project, the International Fine Cocoa Innovation Centre (IFCIC), made possible through partial funding from the European Union under the ACP Science & Technology Programme II. Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, who is director of the Cocoa Research Centre, conceived the project, to be led by the Cocoa Research Centre in partnership with the Cocoa Industry Board of Jamaica, Newer Worlds of the UK, and the Caribbean Fine Cocoa Forum.
Romina Umaharan explained:
"The IFCIC will be built in two years. It's a multi-purpose facility with a chocolate factory and a business incubator with a teaching area. We'll also have a chocolate restaurant and a model cocoa orchard where we can show people how to grow cocoa properly. We also want to have a little museum. It will be commercially run, and is supposed to be self-sustaining."
The centre will be a "bean-to-bar" model, integrating agriculture, food processing research and commerce into a viable food security model to help develop the Caribbean cocoa industry.
So cocoa may soon be giving us much more than transient, sweet chocolate love: we may soon be developing new livelihoods, too.
MORE INFO
The UWI Cocoa Research Centre,
Sir Frank Stockdale Building,
University of the West Indies,
St Augustine campus.
Tel: 662-8788; 662-2002,
ext 82115
www.cocoacentre.com
Email: info@cocoacentre.com