Students and Farmers, Unite!

Cocoa Farming Future Initiative is at it again, chipping away at the layers that separate growers from consumers. In its quest to advocate for and improve the lives of cocoa farmers in Grenada, CFFI is about to welcome its inaugural group of on-the-ground student-interns in a meeting of minds and hands, innovation and experience. For five weeks these students will traverse the island nation to conduct farmer surveys as part of CFFI's greater needs assessment, lend their youthful, agile hands at various farms, develop educational projects with schools to promote agriculture as a meaningful and promising future, break fresh ground to develop a communal compost heap in the northwest, and pursue their own projects of pleasure and progress. We hope this internship program will be the first of many, and we hope you'll follow us as we distill our adventures around the island into a few words each week.

I should introduce myself. I'm Owen and I've been on the Board of CFFI since last summer. I've helped out with a little bit of everything at the organization, but most of my energy has been solitary, in the form of writing grants. I'm pleased as pie (pumpkin, please) to have helped the for-profit cocoa processing facility raise a chunk of money from USAID to procure equipment. (The award is almost official, but not quite. And, if you're not familiar with this project, check out http://www.grenadacocoa.com/ and listen to the radio interview with Larry Burdick.) But the reason I'm here, in Grenada as I write this, is to oversee and be a part of the work of these students. It's time to put those words into action.

How is almost all cocoa dried in Grenada? Solar power! Here a woman turns the cocoa with her feet, allowing all beans to dry evenly.

In the few days I've been here, anticipating the students' arrival on Tuesday, I've met with a few key figures that will help us hit the ground running. Mr. Wayne, a Grenada Cocoa Association (GCA) field agent, a man with a friendly face and knowing eyes, will be showing us fields behind the processing facility where we can get dirty and put our hands to good use. Our work will help this land recover and perhaps make possible a demonstration field for visitors - maybe even a cocoa PYO for the hardcore chocolate tourists! Dr. Buckmire, a former head of the GCA, quick with an idea and a cunning smile to accompany it, will help with our compost efforts and just about anything else; his mind is virtually bursting with ways to keep his body busy. Mr. Hastick, the current head of the GCA, will be a source of information and initiation. He is the grease for our gears.

And what will we do for leisure at the end of each day, you ask? Eat! That's what I'll do. We have a chef de cuisine here as our host. He's (originally) British, but he can cook. Kim Russell, host extraordinaire, has made teryaki chicken with pineapple, potato pancakes, calliloo soup, passionfruit pancakes, and a mango-banana crumble that might've ruined every future crumble for me. Besides eating, there may be the occasional cocoa fermentation experiment or chocolate-making session to pass the time.

All of the students will be contributing to this blog, and they'll all introduce themselves. This is the first of many entries, each no more than a few paragraphs, but rich, we hope, with our impressions of Grenada and of our progress as visitors with a purpose. Keep your eyes open for us and your mouths open for Grenada chocolate.

Owen