Archive for the 'Projects' Category

In the next installment of our Friday Feature series, Central High School student Martha Scott Burton relates the information she has learned about Tanzania and Liberia, the top country choices for the Cocoa Honors team.

The country of Tanzania is experiencing a re-emergence of the cocoa industry, providing an opportune time frame for Cocoa Honors to capitalize on trade’s growth.  Additionally, 95% of the cocoa beans are grown organically (a requirement for Askinosie’s high quality beans).  The bean source is rare and largely undiscovered, allowing Askinosie to potentially create a unique and one-of-a-kind chocolate bar.  Such a chocolate bar could not be produced without great contacts, and Tanzania has plenty of contacts.   Doug Pitt’s well-drilling company, Maji-Tech, has offered great assistance in our service project if we decide upon Tanzania as an African cocoa source.  This is possibly the most exciting opportunity of the project:  to make a sustainable and long-lasting difference in the lives of others.  By funding a well, we would be providing clean water to a region desperately in need of such resources.  The NGO Techno-Serve has also been of excellent help in contacting farmers.  Tanzania has a rich history and a wealth of information that we hope to continue to delve into as the project progresses.

 We were first alerted to the potential of Liberia as a cocoa source by Sourcing Team Leader and Central High School student David Langdon.  Liberia has a deep history, as it was recently ravaged by a fourteen-year civil war.  The cocoa industry is redeveloping, the economy is growing, and the nation is rebuilding, serving as a launch pad of sorts for a great cocoa source.  Being supplied great contacts through the Mars Corporation, we have come in contact with the ACDI-VOCA NGO and many local farmers, including Musu Flomo, who is sending us bean samples in the very near futuer.  These contacts have assured us of the first-class quality of their beans.  To be sure, Liberia has great potential. 

In conclusion, Cocoa Honors believes that Tanzania and Liberia will both yield a great single-origin chocolate bar, one of superb taste and of artistic proportions.

On December 17 the Cocoa Honors students were able to make a Skype call half-way around the world and speak with Hillary Miller-Wise, the director of TechnoServe activities in Tanzania. TechnoServe is an organization which provides help to businesses disadvantaged by locale and income. Its Tanzania branch aids small businesses in five industries in that country (cocoa, coffee, cotton, tea, horticulture). Ms. Miller-Wise provided information about the system in Tanzania by which cocoa is sold. In Tanzania, cocoa, after being grown by the farmers, is sold to primary buyers who then move the cocoa to the exporters. However, sometimes the primary buyers take advantage of the farmers and do not pay them nearly as much as the cocoa is worth; TechnoServe is trying to address this information disparity to promote fair trade in Tanzania. The situation is so tragic that many farmers have never even tasted finished chocolate, the fruits of their labor. Ms. Miller-Wise, through her experience with the cocoa industry, was also able to share important knowledge about the quality of the beans in Tanzania. She said that the typical harvest season was mainly between February and July. (Sometimes cocoa is available as early as January or as late as August, but that cocoa is generally of lower quality because it is harvested too early or late.) Finally, Ms. Miller-Wise informed the students that travel was likely to be highly inexpensive inside of Tanzania, which is certainly a bonus.