As the Government moves towards the revitalisation of the cocoa industry, farmers in north and east Trinidad believe if automated cocoa dryers and incentives for labour are not granted, the industry will soon die. The industry which contributed to T&T's development for more than 200 years, began during the Spanish colonisation, but declined rapidly in the 1920's because of falling prices. Since the 1950s, repeated attempts have been unsuccessfully made to revitalise the local cocoa business. In the 1990s, farmers said they were promised leases and incentives to work their cocoa fields but none was provided. Although T&T's cocoa has been ranked as the best in the world, local cocoa farmers continue to abandon their lands. Cocoa houses, once the hub of activity, now lie dormant.
A few cocoa houses in Mayaro and Manzanilla have been converted into homes, while many others located along Caigual, Toco and Sangre Grande remain deserted and covered with vines and shrubs. With only a few cocoa farmers operating in the Grande Riviere district, many complain of low cocoa prices, high labour costs, praedial larceny and problems in acquiring loans because they did not possess land leases. Former cocoa farmer Terry Valentine, of Mayaro, said he stopped cultivating cocoa 15 years ago. "Cocoa is hard work and after my uncle passed on we could not get labourers to work in the fields," Valentine explained. He said for generations, the family cultivated cocoa on 28 acres of land.
LEFT: Leslie Peters of Grande Rivere, left, hands his father Leroy some cocoa harvested from their fields. Photos: RADHICA SOOKRAJ
"Those estates are now abandoned...I am looking to sell everything because I don't think I will be able to go back to cocoa farming," he said. Valentine noted that since Amoco came to develop energy reserves in the south- eastern coasts, most labourers sought better employment opportunities outside of the agricultural sector. "During the vacation period, we may get some workers but most people have gone on to work for Cepep and other Government jobs, so that is the problem," Valentine said. He said the cocoa houses at Bonespoire Road were used as stock rooms. One of Valentine's relative added that the sea blast from the Atlantic Ocean made it difficult to dry cocoa after being harvested.
We're suffering say Toco farmers
Farmers at Grande Riviere, Toco, also complained of similar setbacks. Ashton Gomez who plants nine acres of cocoa said the major problem was drying cocoa. "What the Government should do is to provide an automated dryer for the cocoa," he said. "We can pay to use the dryer because during the rainy season, we have real pressure to dry cocoa." He explained that once a crop gots wet, it spoils. Gomez said: "That is our losses. We have to spend days sweating the cocoa. We have to find a more efficient method to dry cocoa." He said the Government's plans to revitalise the industry may prove economical in the future, once proper incentives for labour and automated machinery were installed. He also complained that farmers did not get a fair price for cocoa.
Gomez also called on the Government to implement methods to blend the cocoa which could then be sold locally and regionally. Leroy Peters and his son Leslie, who work a ten-acre parcel of land at Grande Riviere, also complained of difficulties in producing the crop. Peters said despite the odds, they continued to sell more than 600 kilos of cocoa a year. He said: "We get between $12 and $14 per kilo. That is not sufficient. Sometimes we go to Caroni to sell our cocoa because we fetch a better price than if we sell to the cocoa agents." He explained that transportation was a major setback which was creating rising costs of production.
"In the times gone by, we had workers who would clean the fields...We had benched roads in the fields so it was easy to bring out the produce," Peters said. "Now we don't have labourers... it is just me and my son and how much would we do?" He appealed to the Government to provide leases for farmers so they could obtain loans. "We cannot go to the bank to get a loan because we don't have any leases," Peters said. "Since 1990, Dr Keith Rowley said he would make arrangements for us to get leases. That was 20 years ago and we still waiting." In a recent interview, Agriculture Minister Vasant Bharat said Government was looking at expanding the cocoa industry. He said that T&T's cocoa was the finest in the world.