 Agriculture on the move. Agriculture on the move. Agriculture on the move. Hello again, St. Lucia, and welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. I am a Philip Sidney, a host. Today we are going to discuss a very, very important program. Some of you may have heard about other programs featuring that commodity. But in keeping with our food and nutrition security, this is the mantra of the ministry. Diversification has been around for a while, so we need to continue with diversification. We are diversifying with bananas, and there are many, many commodities that we can diversify with to ensure that our food security is in place. With me today is Mr. Eloy Alexis, who is the coordinator of the COCO project, which is a new project, but is also the regional supervisor for the Extension Region 6 extension project. Welcome to the program, sir. Thanks for having me, Mr. Sidney. Eloy, COCO has been around for a while. I mean, I grew up on a farm, and of course I remember going into the COCO field and actually eating, not chewing, but sucking on the beans is the thing that we did as well. But not knowing the importance of COCO, though as a cottage industry in the past, that's what used to happen. People do their own COCO stick at home. I remember my mom, my dad used to do that. But it has grown now. We have chocolates being made in St. Lucia right now, so we're expanding, and we need to continue on that process. That new COCO project, how was that project conceptualized and give us the objectives of that project? As you rightly said, Mr. Sidney, COCO has been with us for a while, and in the past we have had initiative targeting rehabilitation of the COCO farm sub-sector. And this time around, in 2020, what we did under the stewardship of Mr. Kemuel Jabatis, we did a rapid assessment of the industry to find the status of the industry. So the extension officers did a survey of all COCO fields in St. Lucia, and the result that we got was we had approximately 900 acres of COCO, and in terms of density, field density per acre, we discovered that it is kind of low. The average plant density per acre currently in St. Lucia is 168 plants per acre, which is very low compared to when we consider traditional planting density, where you get 300 plants per acre. When you take the standard, it's 400, and right now people are going into high density planting, where they can get all 800 plants per acre. So in terms of the rationale for a COCO expansion and rehabilitation program, we thought COCO in terms of what is going on globally. There's a global demand for COCO and its byproducts. It is a multi-billion dollar industry, and that in St. Lucia, no doubt, we have the micro-climatic condition and the cadre of farmers who can produce this crop successfully. Also, we looked at them in terms of climate change. The COCO plant is more resilient when it comes to climate change compared to bananas. Although there are two major in terms of mega-weather phenomenon, which is El Nino and La Nina, which also have an impact on the plant, but it is not as serious crucial as compared to bananas. So the COCO plant is able to really withstand the vagaries of the weather much better than the bananas. Also in terms of another rationale where we decided and we realized currently in St. Lucia, there's a demand for COCO beans. Quite a few people are involved in agro-processing of COCO. Most of the hotels in St. Lucia are producing chocolates. A lot of people are producing COCO sticks, which has been sold locally, and even export to the French territories, Magnic and Guadeloupe. So there's always a shortage of COCO beans on the island. And also it complements well, it augurs well in terms of as an additional, an optional crop for diversification. So these are the rational why we chose to really decide to really go and look into resuscitating the industry and also expanding the industry. Eloi, that is a very good initiative. The only concern I have, unlike other projects, like referring to COCO in the past, there was a COCO program, I think in 2009. There was rehabilitation, there was expansion, and all of a sudden it died a natural death. So much so I recall there was a COCO fomentary that was built in Asia and it has not been commissioned. What makes this project special in terms of continuity? Well, in terms of that project being special, in terms of the intervention that we have shortlisted on this project will be compared to other projects where they never really focus on really capacity building. This time around we'll place a lot of emphasis on capacity building, training of the farmers. I don't think ever we have really targeted agro-processors. This time around we are going to be targeting agro-processors and be providing them training in terms of product safety and so forth and product development. In the past the other projects in terms of they never really focused, they did not get a COCO project that focused on all aspects of COCO production. Rehabilitation, expansion, and training of farmers. So those in the past used to look at maybe rehabilitation or expansion. A typical example in 2009 as you said we focused heavily on rehabilitation of COCO fields for farmers. And I must add most of the time when these things die as a natural death is that very often when government intercede and on the farmer's farm we do it in a manner that we expect the farmers to continue pruning that COCO field. And what we see after we have pruned for them these fields tend to go back after one or two years and go back to the original state. So we expect the farmer whatever intervention that we have taken on the farm in terms of pruning rehabilitation we expect the farmer to take it from there and run with it because very often we don't have the kind of resources to really undertake a COCO rehabilitation program on the island be it every three or four years. So the training component is very crucial. Very important. That's the component that will be funded under that project. It is going to be funded under that project and quite luckily FAO under the ACPM EES project which is currently being executed in St. Lucia they have decided to give us 82,000 US dollars. So that money is going to be used as of last week we had an engagement with a facilitator in terms of fermentation and drying of COCO so that we are going to have this training for the farmers. So that money will be spent on training agro-processors, farmers in fermentation drying and also the agronomy of the crop also. In terms of the acreage for expansion and new establishment how many acres are you looking at and among how many farmers? So in terms of expansion we are looking at and expanding by 290 acres and in terms of rehabilitation we are looking at 123 acres and I must say among the area the field that we are going to rehabilitate in terms of pruning based on the planting density I alluded to earlier on in terms of the field density per acre which is our 168th plant we have made our calculation and we realize that we have to these existing estates we have to plant an additional 78 acres to really bring it to optimal planting density. Okay, okay, okay but then let's look at marketing you made mention of local marketing agro-processing etc years ago we were exporting dry beans that was a big thing for St. Lucia via the Agricultural Association where is that pattern parcel of the program in terms of marketing exporting our beans? Yes, very much so and I don't know if you can recall the minister, our current minister and a delegation went from Ministry of Commerce and St. Lucia to England and Cuckoo was one of the crops that they really went and find out if they were really wanted to buy but notwithstanding St. Lucia we do export beans there are two entities right now in St. Lucia Hotel Chocolat and Unionville who exports beans so these two entities especially in the case of Hotel Chocolat they have their own farm estates but they would purchase the beans from farmers wet beans so they pay them $3 they would ferment dry and they would export it to England so the farmers have that option of selling the beans to Hotel Chocolat so they don't have to go through the hassle of fermenting dry so they just sell the wet beans to Hotel Chocolat directly Hotel Chocolat is a program where they actually give the farmers plant think material and then in exchange they would sell the beans to them how is that in terms of so there is some sort of symbiotic relationship between that program the Ministry is doing and Hotel Chocolat and the likes well that is because we are an engagement with farmers in terms of the hotel because what we want to do is to look at the sub sector the cuckoo sector holistically and we did some cost analysis also in terms of selling your robins vis-a-vis adding value to it and we realized that where the money lies in the sense adding the value to it so we realized that farmers kind of have been short changed in terms of based on the kind of money that is being generated in terms of when you add value to it so we had some consultations with farmers around the island in terms of a governance structure for the industry and that we are proposing a cooperative structure where farmers can sell their beans to the cooperative and the cooperative will be involved in a number of activities the provision of inputs to farmers agro processing and our vision is to if there is any profit which has been accrued that some of that profit would be repatriated to the persons who are producing the beans that's fantastic I can see that the commissioning of this plan may come to fruition after all wow anyway we due for a break you are watching our culture and the moves to tune will be back very very soon what is biodiversity? when you look at biodiversity it's all wrong I think of biological and I think of diversity what is biosafety? safety measures for our foods our products biosafety is the variety of life biosafety on the other hand involves the management of products of biotechnology and LMOs biosafety seeks to protect Saint Lucia's biodiversity the terms biodiversity and biosafety are not interchangeable get familiar with these terms observe the biodiversity around you the changing environment of food production and sustainable growth to your part visit our websites and stay tuned to this station for more information on the national biosafety framework welcome back to the program agriculture on the move and of course with me my guest Eloy Alexis who is the coordinator of the new COCO initiative and of course COCO as we all know is one of the crops that will not die you see bananas will die, bananas still alive COCO will be here will be gone and COCO will still be here Eloy moving forward what are the incentives to the farmers because we have gone to the farmer and we have seen programs field in this new initiative what it is in terms of sensitization have you all had meetings with the farmers to tell them about this project are they buying into it and they are hoping to take your advice and to go ahead and to get the extension officers to implement the project in a very efficient way well as I said alluded to earlier we have had public consultations with the farmer in terms of a governance structure for the industry so we went to the major production belt of COCO on the island and we basically sold our proposal to the farmers so they were very receptive in terms of what we proposed so the project also in its embryonic stages and that the resources the financial resources has not been this boost per se in terms of the first and second quarter location but we are moving ahead in terms of incentives for farmers prior to the project coming on stream we had a biopropagation facility I should say one of the component of the project that we are going to provide the farmers with seedlings so you get that free? just a token of appreciation not free free I agree no giving them free when you know when you give people free they don't appreciate so we will be attaching a value of two dollars per plant so it will be further subsidized to the farmers okay in terms of the training I mentioned training we may not see but there is a cost attached to training people of building capacity also so we are looking at in terms of the person not only farmers but as I said we are targeting agro processors we will be offering the same the training and we will be purchasing equipment for the agro processors also alright the farmers will be also providing them with equipment pole saws, weed eaters and so forth so all of these are benefits where the farmers tend to benefit from is that project island wide looking at the various local in terms of its ecological zones where it can be grown so is it island wide? it is an island wide project but emphasis will be placed cocoa is a crop that grows in specific microclimatic conditions and that the areas in St. Lucia which is very synonymous with cocoa production is region 6 the souffle area region 1 and 2 Barbano area region 3 region 4 and region 7 these are the areas where you find the majority of cocoa estates or cocoa producers you said Barbano in the area because I have a niece of mine a grand niece of mine who is probably watching Donna I hope so you know Placer is an area that you can plant cocoa so check your session officer when it comes to pest management I know we had a major problem with blackboard where are we with that in terms of pest control and moving forward in that project in terms of pest management and fungal diseases is a major problem in cocoa production and due to the erratic changes in the weather pattern that today you might have rain and afterwards you have a dry spell for 2 to 3 days so it creates the condition the platform for the spread or the proliferation of fungal diseases so right now we have a serious issue in terms of the incidence of blackboard on cocoa and it missed things through the lack of management of cultural practices on the farm so hence the reason why will be in terms of pruning showing the farm how to prune penetration on the plant also so the training about the agronomy is going to bring the farmers up to level in terms of what they need to do to really minimise on this spread of diseases at some point we had a little problem with witches broom but we were able to really suppress the disease and so forth of late the research department will be conducting a surveillance in terms of that disease which we call a frosty pod it is in Jamaica but I do not think we have it down here let's pray that we don't get it down here but they also have some epiphytes on the stem so that has to be controlled physically it has to be controlled physically so the answer is why part of the training that we are going to inculcate to the farmers that they have to really go and take out this epiphyte because it competes with the plants it does in terms of shade trees are the farmers going to purchase that on their own in the new establishment or is the project going to give them plants for shade trees as I said the farmers will get in terms of access to these shade trees at a subsidized price oh the shade trees are subsidized at a subsidized price so both the plants the cocoa plants themselves and the shade trees so remember that in terms of shade trees you can select an immortal or plant of economic importance what are you all suggesting moving forward because I mean from immortality you don't get anything coming from immortality maybe apart from soaring it but I mean in terms of a crop of economic importance most of the estates the shade trees are crops of economic importance the nutmeg, avocado and we are not going to and it's all going well in terms of at least diversifying the farmers income base so the time that we have estates and cocoa nutmeg, avocado or mango in fact I'm thinking here while you're preparing your land and you've planted your shade crops and there will be still room you can plant short term crops before the canopy takes over the entire thing you spoke about permanent shade remember the temporary shade where you use the moussa species yes you're going to use a plantain you're going to use banana correct correct in terms of soil nutrients what sort of program is there to assist the farmer with fertilization well the project our overall our vision was to at least based on what in terms of the dimension of the project of rehabilitating 123 acres expanding by 298 acres the allocation which the prime minister is at 1.4 million dollars it is going to need much more than this and hence the reason why we have through the office of the prime minister the performance management and delivery unit we have written a proposal to CDB requesting an additional 5 million dollars to really do all what we envision to do on this project so presently the proposal is at the ministry of agriculture where they are vetting it but for now the money that we have will not be so we are taking the most important aspect of KUKU and then we go and based on the resources that we have available to us we are going to go ahead I will play devil's advocate here okay you are saying you do not have all the funds to execute the project so you are hoping you will get it but do you believe that you do not go out there and tell farmers you are going to do this you are going to do A and B and when the time comes for continuation to get that fund or second phase for me call it that way and you do not get it what is going to happen are you sure you are going to get that because these are questions that is important to answer that is very important or in terms of assistance to the families in terms of what they are going to get but in terms of what the project has been the targeted intervention was what I have alluded to and it is going to cost a lot of money in terms of so we need to get the financing so that we can undertake all the activities that we have shortlisted under the project when it comes to tools and equipment okay you will need of course pruning tools you will need sprayers and stuff like this for patient disease management at whose cost is it at the farmers cost or is it part and parcel of the project we can look at an option in terms of if we have as I said we will be providing small tools to the farmers we eat a pool source so that is part of it but in terms of the pruning that we have a contract so they move from farm to farm yeah to go and prune for the farmers and that person contractor is expected or will be expected to have his or her own equipment to go and so in every local they will probably be a crew like a crew north of crew you know maybe in the south southwest and the kind of thing that is going to work that would be the ideal scenario based on the vast acreage that we have on the tick so if we have a crew of cuckoo to rehabilitate would need more than one crew of personnel to go and do the pruning the phytosonetary measures and so forth so it would call for more than one crew and to do it at a time when very importantly it must be done before the cuckoo really starts to flower or the onset of the rainy season the cuckoo is going so you do not want to interrupt with farm when the cuckoo is flowering for you and finally extension's involvement extension has been crucial in terms of in that cuckoo farm sector enhancement program they were the one who did the survey of the industry and that in terms of moving forward they will be fully on board even the extension officers at some point will receive training just to freshen them up in terms of the agronomy of the crop you have one second, final words from you Cuckoo farm in terms of the project to be a very a very good project for Saint Lucia given the right now the global importance that attached to cuckoo and that we have the micro-climatic condition so that we can really go into cuckoo and quite a few people in terms of the cottage industry agro processing quite a few people have come on board which is very good as I said that is where the money lies in Ghana just last year the government decreed that they are not going to export their raw beans to Europe so they are going to providing assistance to the agro processors so that the money stays in country what used to happen is that you export the beans to Europe and gets back to we have to do the same here and we cannot, the average Ghanian could not afford to buy a bar of chocolate so we have to let the money as I said food security has many facets in terms of so let's get the money Eloy, thank you for being here man you have come to the end of the project the program I am hoping that I know it will be successful but again I am still saying let us have all hands on deck to ensure that we satisfy the farmer because he is the one that is getting all the shitty end of the stick you have been watching agriculture in the move remember agriculture in our business we will be having a cocoa festival pretty soon too after our CMOS festival in October 16th I am Philip Sydney goodbye thank you sir agriculture on the move agriculture on the move agriculture on the move agriculture on the move agriculture on the move agriculture on the move