Chances are, when you bite into a piece of chocolate you’re not thinking about the farmers who grew the cocoa beans it came from.
Walpole chocolate maker Paula Burdick does think about the farmers at the source of her creations, and she devised a way to protect them.
L.A. Burdick Chocolate, a mail and online business that also showcases its products at cafes in Walpole, Cambridge, Mass., and New York City, uses chocolate processed at plants in Switzerland, France and Venezuela in its creations.
Soon, the company will process its own chocolate — in Grenada.
Burdick and her husband, Lawrence, co-owner and co-founder of L.A. Burdick Chocolate, visited the South American country on vacation in 2000.
“We saw how poor the cocoa farmers were (in Grenada),” she said. “And we realized how incredible the cocoa plants are there.”
Although Grenada produces less than a fraction of 1 percent of the world’s cocoa, it is considered some of the world’s highest-quality. The country’s tropical climate and volcanic soil create a perfect growing environment for the beans.
“Cocoa prospers best in the rainforest,” Burdick said.
“There’s not a lot of weather variation and there’s a lot of wetness and heat.”
The beans are shipped to a processing plant in Switzerland, where the cocoa is then sold to manufacturers. The farmers in Grenada make very little money for harvesting the cocoa beans.
Burdick said her husband’s thought was how to add more value to the crop so farmers can make more money. He thought of building a processing plant in Grenada — that way there is no cost to ship the beans.
Unfortunately, the Burdicks had to put off their goal. Hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 caused massive damage to homes and businesses throughout the Caribbean, including Grenada’s rainforests and forest agriculture.
Along with the storms setting them back, farmers in Grenada are further hampered because their farmland is in danger of being logged, grazed, or sold for resort development. Tourism is the country’s main foreign exchange.
Individualized farming of cocoa in Grenada is still a loosely organized, labor-intensive effort with little technological support. Many farmers grow cocoa as they have for generations, with little training in how to improve productivity and earnings from this critically important cash crop.
Burdick said her goal is to empower the country’s cocoa farmers. During her Grenada trip in 2000, she met the director of the Grenada Cocoa Association, a cooperative of 5,000 farmers and an agricultural extension service for the cocoa community.
She waited a few years for Grenada’s ecosystem to recover from the storms, and, a year ago, she formed the Cocoa Future Farming Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works closely with the Grenada Cocoa Association. Its main objectives are to raise awareness about farming in Grenada and to raise money for farmers by hosting events close to L.A. Burdick Chocolate’s home base in Walpole.
Although the hurricanes caused massive damage, cocoa trees begin to bear fruit in six years, which means they are producing now, Burdick said.
Burdick plans to build a cocoa processing plant in Grenada, with the goal of opening this summer. The Burdicks will purchase and process beans from farmers there to sell at their stores in the U.S. and to other high-end chocolate makers within a year after the plant opens.
In addition to raising funds and awareness for farmers in Grenada, the Cocoa Future Farming Initiative’s work also consists of supporting existing cocoa farms by clearing gardens of debris left after the 2004 hurricane and replanting and managing understory cocoa trees along with shade canopy trees.
Cocoa in Grenada is often cultivated under nutmeg, banana and other high shade trees in the jungle — it doesn’t require open land for cultivation. This habitat provides an ecological resistance to disease and is home to midges, insects that are the cocoa flower’s sole pollinator; higher pollination means a higher yield.
There may be fewer cocoa trees on smaller farms like those in Grenada, but the trees are healthier. Higher yields and healthier trees mean less cost to the growers.
Very low pollination rates in large cocoa plantations in other countries has been attributed to the increased use of fertilizers and chemical pesticides. With help from Grenada Cocoa Association and the Cocoa Future Farming Initiative, farmers in Grenada are taught to grow without pesticides and fertilizers — which would make their cocoa beans organic.
Another objective of the farming initiative is to work with farmers to support biodiversity, or the variety of life within an ecosystem.
Most farmers in Grenada have only 3 or 4 acres of land on which to farm and a handful of cocoa trees, Burdick said.
But while large cocoa plantations have many rows of only cocoa trees, the small farms in Grenada have bananas, nutmeg (the country is one of the world’s largest exporters of the spice) and other crops growing alongside the cocoa trees.
Burdick said not only does this low-impact style of farming create a complex taste in the cocoa beans, but it’s sustainable — two qualities that create higher economic value and in turn secure the highest market share for the farmer.
“You don’t rely on what you think is your best cash crop,” said Thomas Sintros, Cocoa Future Farming Initiative board member and Keene High School environmental science teacher. “Because if there’s a drought, it could wipe you out.”
A biodiverse farm can sustain itself with income from its other crops if one crop does poorly . The same goes with pollinating insects. If a colony of bees that pollinates a plant dies off, that crop would die off. “It’s an interwoven web.”
The organization has the word “future” in its title because part of its mission is to attract young people to the agricultural sector. The average age of Grenada’s cocoa farmer is 59 years old. Younger generations are leaving the farms for the island’s few cities or to emigrate.
That’s why, Sintros said, a large piece of the organization’s mission is education. He coordinates members to work in different sectors, including educating the cocoa farming community. Others will serve as experts in plant and forest agriculture.
A team of Antioch students will visit Grenada this year to establish a green business model for farmers. Part of that job will entail establishing a central distribution location for compost.
“A lot of farmers want to be organic in Grenada but they don’t have the infrastructure to do so,” Sintros said.
Burdick said another goal is to facilitate distribution of cocoa tree saplings subsidized by Grenada’s government.
Transportation of cocoa beans — which sometimes can take all day by donkey ride — to cocoa stations for drying is another task members plan to streamline.
The organization will assign a field officer to set up these systems and represent and communicate with farmers.
“They need someone to be a voice for them,” Burdick said.
Sintros also plans to visit the country to establish a farm-to-school program.
“That way, children can learn and later continue to improve farming methods,” he said.
The farming initiative goes beyond working with cocoa beans — one board member is working with women in Grenada to make and sell products such as baskets made from sea grass.
The Cocoa Future Farming Initiative will host a fundraising event — a five-course chocolate dinner, including chocolate beer made with cocoa from Grenada — Feb. 13 and 14 at Elm City Brewing Company in Keene. Call 355-3335 for more information or to purchase tickets.
“We’re creating a circle,” Burdick said of the farming initiative. “By helping the farmers help themselves, they’re helping us.”
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