Almirante

After a day in San José, Costa Rica meeting with representatives from APPTA (a Costa Rican cocoa co-op) and FINMAC (cocoa processors) we flew into beautiful Bocas del Toro on a 19-seater Twin Otter yesterday. We spent the night on Bastimientos Island and had an early morning start today, taking 2 water taxis to arrive at COCABO’s offices in Almirante. After an impressive tour of the office, weighing station and hardware store, we met with representatives of the Board of Directors (BoD). Here we had an opportunity to learn more about each other’s organizations; we discussed current projects, challenges, and the impact of belonging to the fair trade system.

COCABO has 35 permanent staff members, hiring extra help during harvest times (today there were 7 extra employees). Gender equality came up frequently in our discussions, and women are employed in prominent positions: there is 1 woman on the 7-member BoD and 1 woman on the Vigilance Committee. These days the co-op receives approximately 6000 kilos/day from farmers, 30 to 40 of whom arrive daily to sell their beans. While some have farms nearby, others may walk for up to 2 days to sell their 100 -150 pound bags of cocoa beans.

Unlike many cocoa co-ops, the farmers ferment and dry their own beans before selling them to COCABO, which the BoD says leads to improved quality due to ownership over this process. Fair trade premiums, as determined by the co-op’s general assembly in 2007, are currently being used to buy dryers (marcacinas) and fermentation boxes (fermentadoras), as well as to build warehouses in communities located far from COCABO. USAID and the Panamanian government also fund development projects at COCABO related to drying and fermenting.

We’re looking forward to heading out to the farms tomorrow to meet with more cocoa producers…

Après un transit au Costa Rica, où nous avons eu une reunion avec un représentant de la cooperative APPTA et un transformateur local de Cacao, nous avons pris un petit avion en direction du Panama. Un taxi et deux bateaux plus tard nous voici dans le port bananier dAlmirante, où se trouvent les bureaux principaux de COCABO. Après une visite des installations de COCABO, le Vice president de la cooperative, des représentants du conseil dadministration et le gérant general ont passé la journée avec nous a discuter de nos organisations, de nos projets et des défis liés au commerce equitable et á la construction d’une économie sociale.

Demain nous passons la journée dans la montagne à visiter les producteurs sur leurs fermes où nous aurons l’occasion de de voir comment se passe la grande récolte….