USAID introduced the high-yielding but acidic tasting CNN-51 coca, the key ingredient in cocaine, to Peru in 2002, to offer farmers an alternative planting coca.
CCN-51 cocoa, developed in Ecuador in the 1960s and planted throughout Africa to supply makers of mass-produced chocolate, grows faster and yields more than most native varieties.
"We want to help Peru become one of the world's leading specialty cocoa producers," said Loren Stoddard, director of alternative development at USAID in Peru.
Despite the program, chocolate makers are encouraging farmers to instead cultivate smaller amounts of rare, native cocoa that fetches higher prices from buyers who value complex and subtle flavors and judge chocolate by the personality of its cocoa.
Building on a culinary and economic boom in Peru, start-up chocolate makers are holding tastings to highlight accents ranging from nutty to floral in chocolate made from cocoa native to distinct microclimates, altitudes and latitudes. They say Peru will never become a global bulk cocoa supplier like the Ivory Coast, so they instead want it to be the main cocoa source for high-end chocolate makers. However, this can be a tough sell because Peru and its neighbor Colombia are the world's biggest cocaine producers and when farmers do abandon coca planting they usually choose the highest-yielding alternative crops. There is a lot of pressure to plant CCN-51 from institutions.
It would be interesting to see how Peru will position themselves in chocolate market and build-up their economy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-peru-cocoa-idUSBRE83O19I20120425
No comments:
Post a Comment