Regional cocoa rehabilitation and development project

Lucia, and St. Vincent) through TA to key producers, increased private sector involvement, and investment in advanced production practices. External evaluation covered the period FY86-11/89. The project has made extremely good progress, despite the slow start-up caused by delays in securing agreements with national governments and by erroneous assumptions in the original design. For example, there were problems in gaining the participation of large farmers in Grenada, many of whom were reluctant to invest in farm improvement due to fear of having their land confiscated. In addition, extension agents considered the project"s demonstration plots to be an additional burden. Also, the reorganization of Grenada"s cocoa industry took exceedingly long (until 7/89), making some extension agents uneasy about their future employment and unmotivated to initiate changes. Besides these problems, the unfortunate selection of an uncooperative cocoa officer in St. Lucia caused difficulties which were not resolved until the person was removed in 6/88. Also, St. Vincent was dropped from the project after exhaustive efforts to negotiate an agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture. Achievements in the last 18 months on the three remaining islands have been impressive, thanks to the excellent work of the Pan American Development Foundation TA team, in particular its rapport with counterparts, and the use of very good technologies. Demonstration plots have been established on all three islands and are being used effectively in training farmers and extension agents. In addition, an excellent data collection system is in place to provide information on the costs of rehabilitation and/or replanting cocoa under a range of conditions. The Government of St. Lucia has initiated a 3-year rehabilitation program using project-supported methods and cost data. The Government has supplied EC$220,000 in grant funds to finance half of the cost of rehabilitating up to 10 acres per farm. Likewise in Grenada, EC$900,000 is available as a 50% subsidy for planting new cocoa using project-supported practices. The design goal of increasing cocoa production by 30% in 5 years was excessively optimistic: cocoa requires 3 years for new plantings to come into production. The assumption that coca prices would not decrease during this period was also incorrect. Nonetheless, diversification into cocoa is considered a sound investment, especially since the region"s banana exports may be jeopardized when England joins the European Economic Community. It is recommended that the project be extended 5 years to fully benefit from the investment and progress to date. The major lesson learned is that project designers should survey and analyze the potential beneficiaries to ensure that the target audience is receptive.