SUNDAY 4 FEBRUARY, 2018 – UWI TODAY
5
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
CRC work. For instance, it helped attract the EU/ACP €2.6 million funding to help build
the International Fine Cocoa Innovation Centre, of which the chocolate factory is just one
component. It also helped secure €500,000 in funding from ECA/CAOBISCO/FCC for a
five-year project on mitigation of cadmium in cocoa, which is a growing health concern.
And the MARS chocolate company is funding a joint cocoa genome sequencing project,
where the CRC/UWI has partnered with Stanford University in the USA.
Although funding has enabled the Centre to move ahead with its projects, those funds
are fairly depleted, and there’s still a long way to go: Trinidad’s yields of dried cocoa beans,
for example, are terrible: “In all T&T cocoa farms, the trees are aging. You get maybe 150
kg/hectare; compare that to 4,000 kg/hectare in some other countries,” comments Prof
Umaharan. “Farmers here are still planting cocoa how they used to in the 1800s.” Onmany
levels, the cocoa industry needs help.
The chocolate factory is just the beginning.
Cocoa in Trinidad: Quick Facts
(1 metric tonne =2,204.62 lbs)
• Trinidad is famous for its fine flavour Trinitario cocoa beans used in
premium and single origin cocoa products.
• Cocoa was once our number one crop. In 1921, T&T produced 33,590
metric tonnes of cocoa. Compare that to 2015, with only 350 metric
tonnes.
(Source:
)
• Reasons for the huge decline included overproduction and glut which
reduced the prices; the Great Depression of the 1920s which reduced the
markets; the 1928 Witches’ Broom disease which drastically cut plant
yields; and the rise of the local oil industry, which sucked up available
labour, as folks fled agriculture to get jobs in industry.
• Today in T&T, there are about 1,300 small farmers (30 acres or less);
10 medium sized farmers (250-500 acres); and five large farmers (1,000
acres) who still plant cocoa.
• Lucrative niche markets and the need to develop more diverse,
sustainable sources of national income are both prompting interest in
revitalizing the cocoa sector.
MORE INFO
Cocoa Research Centre
• Tel: 662-8788
International Fine Cocoa Innovation Centre (IFCIC)
Dr Darin Sukha tests the Batch Knife Mill
during his visit to Brazil.
