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New partners boost business for Caribbean farmers
Image courtesy of IFAD/Horst Wagner
Organic farmers in the Caribbean have found new partners - and seen demand for their products grow as a result.
The "match-making" was part of a DFID-funded scheme called the
Business Linkages Challenge Fund, which aims to promote private sector growth
and so reduce poverty in African and Caribbean countries.
Companies which form links with each other can apply for grants from the fund, provided they can show that the links will increase their competitiveness and improve opportunities for poor people. They must also match the grant - which can be from £50,000 to £1m - received from DFID.
Draft Trade Strategy 2005-2007
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Where it worked
The fund has already helped organic farmers from four Caribbean countries, as these examples show.
Image courtesy of Green and Black's
In Belize, an 800-strong cocoa-growing co-operative, the Toledo Cocoa Growers
Association (TCGA)
linked up with UK
chocolate company Green & Blacks to help expand cocoa production by Maya
communities to commercially viable volumes.
In 2003, a hurricane destroyed the cocoa trees and reduced the crop by 80 per
cent. A £225,000 grant from the Department of International Development (DFID),
through the
Business
Linkages Challenge Fund, matched by Green & Black’s own contribution,
allowed cocoa farmers to plant new cocoa trees train staff and work towards
self-sustainability for the farmers.
The Toledo Cacao Growers Association has quadrupled the amount of cocoa beans
sold on a fairtrade basis to Green & Black’s, from a base of 11 tonnes in 2003,
and a number of farmers who abandoned their cocoa after the hurricane are
harvesting again.
“The money is not for the pockets of the farmers, it is to help get more
production for the future. It will also help with making the TCGA stronger. I am
being trained in finances and management, and so are others” explained Gregorio
Choc, Treasurer of the association and a cocoa farmer.
More
on Fair Trade Cocoa Co-operatives
Image courtesy of Fair Trade Foundation
In the Dominican Republic, a growers' association representing 6,000 cocoa
farmers linked up with a large Swiss chocolate processor to produce fair
trade organic chocolate for European markets.Fairtrade
cocoa
In Saint Lucia, farmers' groups linked up with a local herbal drink
manufacturer to increase organic herbal production and so reduce the company's
reliance on imported herbs.
It also provides an alternative income for farmers affected by the downturn
in the banana industry.
Caribbean
Export Development Agency
Image courtesy of Settlement.org
In Guyana, an Amerindian reservation linked up with a French marketing
company to expand organic pineapple farming and processing, giving employment to
60 farmers. In recognition for its contribution to the Millennium
Development Goals, the Amazon
Caribbean project
won a World Business Award in June 2004.
Key facts
- The Business Linkages Challenge Fund will receive £1,836,000 over three years to 2005.
- DFID's funding of BLCF is part of the UK government's Trade-Related Capacity Building programme (TRCB), which aims to help poorer countries develop their own trade to reduce poverty.
- The UK has committed £174 million to TRCB since 1998.