2015 and 2016
Meeting cacao farmers in Culu and learning about cacao sales. The farmers had their regular weekly appointment with a cacao trader. It was a mostly women’s affair, all ladies came up from the village below to the meeting point. We talked about the world commodity prices and the high demand for cacao and the expected steep rise in price.. The ladies did not know about this, they do not have access to that data and accept whatever price the buyer offers. The buyer weighed all bags. That day the price offered was Rp 25.000 per kilo. That was actually not far below the world price I checked on internet – that day was 2498 us$ per 1000 kilo. The ladies can harvest during 6 months, the buyer passes by every week. One lady today sold 16 kilo for Rp 240.000.
One persistent problem is an insect damaging the cacao crops and the problem seems very hard to solve. Pak Klaus and family showed me examples of damaged cacao pods. It is caused by a tiny insect. I found some information on the website of ICCO
For the love of an island 