Thursday, March 12 - CONAVADO Cacao Farmers in Hato Mayor

This morning we left our hotel in Santo Domingo at 7:30 am for our journey to visit cacao farmers in Hato Mayor Province, about 2 hours east and north of Santo Domingo.

We drove east along the southern coast of the DR until we got to San Pedro de Macoris and then turned north toward Hato Mayor.

After turning north toward Hato Mayor we ran into sugarcane country. Big trucks hauling the cane to processing plants.

Cane fields for as far as the eye can see.

When we reached Hato Mayor we picked up our guide and translator, Carlos, and drove on to the CONACADO fermenting and drying plant where we were given an introduction to the cacao operations by Romero, manager in Hato Mayor. There are 2,000 farmers in the Hato Mayor district that are members of CONACADO. Originally, 10 farmers got together in 1985-88 and organized to get themselves a better deal for cacao by working on a way to bypass the middlemen and access the market directly. Over the years, this has led to lots of growth in CONACADO and quality of crop, production yield and prices have improved for farmers. Today, the fair trade premiums earned by CONACADO members is shared equally by the company and the farmer members.

Carlos, in baseball cap, and Romero, no hat, explaining the cacao fermentation process. Raw cacao beans are placed into the top level fermentation boxes for 24 hours, then moved down to level 2 for 48 hours and down to level 3 for 48 hours. After fermentation they are dried. Hispaniola beans (good quality) are dried in hoop tents (like green houses) and Sanchez beans (lower quality) are dried in the sun on the ground.

Fermented cacao beans ready for drying.

Hispaniola beans drying in a solar tent. It takes 6-7 days to dry the beans down to 7% moisture content.

Romero explaining how moisture content in the beans is measured with a moisture meter. Jean doesn't look very impressed by it all.

When it is humid or rainy, sun drying is not enough to get the beans down to 7% moisture content so CONACADO has wood fired drying machines. This one is a tumbler. Farmers earn a bit of extra money by selling wood to fuel the dryer.

These guys are shoveling beans around in a large 'grain dryer' similar to ones used by grain farmers in the US.

The big grain dryer is also fired by wood.

View of the fermentation boxes on 3 levels and the drying tents at CONACADO in Hato Mayor.

 After seeing the fermentation and drying process in Hato Mayor, we drove out on a gravel road to the cacao farm of Lynn Meijia. Meijia was one of the original 10 founding farmers in Hato Mayor and was also one of the first presidents of CONACADO. He owns 10 hectares and farms along with his family members. He has 5 kids of his own and has helped to raise another 6 kids that came to him because he had resources to support them.

Carlos showing us cacao pods growing on trees. Yellow ones are ready to pick and contain many cacao beans.

A cacao tree with blossoms, immature pods, green pods and ripe yellow pods. Hybrid cacao trees yield for about 10 months of the year.

Ripe cacao pods lying on the ground after being cut from the tree. Pods need to be opened within 24 hours and the beans inside have to be delivered for fermenting within 12 hours of opening.

Cacao blossom.

Cacao blossom and green pods.

Walking up the hill to Meijia's farm.

Meijia and Carlos. Meijia is the 4th generation on his farm.

Meijia said: "God says we are here on this earth to serve others, not just to serve ourselves." He said this when we asked him why he had taken on 6 'orphan' kids to raise as his own, in addition to his own 5 kids.

Meijia and other CONACADO farmers have taken on multi-cropping. Besides cacao, they grow bananas, pineapple, guava, zapote, citrus, papaya, mango and a host of other crops. Most are organic farmers and use local natural remedies for pesticides. Organic cacao beans bring a higher price.

Pineapple on Meijia's farm.

Bunch of bananas with flower still attached.

Ripe cacao pods ready to be opened.

Almost ripe cacao pods on the tree.

A little pavilion on Meijia's farm where we were served cacao drinks and a variety of fruit grown on the farm.

Zapote fruit - delicious.

Vija, a seed pod with seeds that yield a red color when crushed. I think it's henna. Meijia said that it is originally from Asia.

Meijia has opened a cacao pod and Kelly and Connor are taking individual beans out of the pod. Beans are covered in a while slimy substance that helps with fermentation. They taste pretty good when you suck on the beans.

Meijia with an opened pod.

Our happy group in the cacao forest with Meijia, his wife, Carlos and Romero.

Meijia uses this long pole with a double edged knife on the end to pick cacao pods that are high up in the tree. We got to try it too. No one got hurt.

Ripe cacao pod and cacao tree leaves.

Kim and Ginny walking through the cacao trees on Meijia's farm.

Young pineapple.

Zapote fruit on the tree.

pote 

Amipola trees (flame of the forest) are grown to provide shade for cacao. Cacao prefers to grow in 50% shade for best results.

Cacao farm foliage.

We enjoyed a fantastic lunch at the CONACADO retreat facility near Meijia's farm. This lizard was checking us out.

After lunch, we got to help pound dried cacao beans into cocoa paste.

She is holding a ball of cocoa paste that we just pounded in the large wooden mortar and pestle.

The cocoa paste is then allowed to harden for 24 hours and then ground into powder. The powder is pure dark chocolate powder. Tastes pretty good.

Adding some sugar to the powder sweetens it up and makes it taste even better.

Charlie loves the cocoa powder with sugar, Frele, our driver, in slightly amused by it all.

We enjoyed a great day with CONACADO in Hato Mayor. We drove back to Santo Domingo and had dinner in an open air restaurant next to the cathedral in old town before going to bed.

Friday we will visit a CONACADO plant north of Santo Domingo and learn more about processing cacao, including the export process to groups like Equal Exchange in the States.

Wednesday, March 11 - CONACADO and Sightseeing in Santo Domingo, the DR

Some of us got up early this morning to catch the sunrise on the Santo Domingo waterfront.

Just before sunrise in Santo Domingo.

After a buffet breakfast on the roof of our hotel, we piled into 2 taxis and found our way to the CONACADA office in Santo Domingo. There we were greeted by Abel Fernandez, Gerente de Exportacion (Export Manager). Abel gave us an overview of their operations. More can be learned about CONACADO on their website at: http://www.conacado.com.do/ 

Equal Exchange, one of CONACADO's fair trade customers describes them like this:

"The National Confederation of Dominican Cacao Producers (CONACADO) is an organization of small-scale cacao producers in the Dominican Republic. CONACADO began as a development project in 1985 during a low in the global cocoa market, to study how cacao fermentation techniques could improve the quality of cacao production in the Dominican Republic. After successfully proving that higher quality, fermented cacao could increase income to small farmers, CONACADO expanded its work to educate cacao farmers and organize them into "bloques" – associations of farmers in a particular geographic area. CONACADO then entered a commercialization phase of the project and focused on finding niche markets for their high quality cacao."

Abel explained that today CONACADO represents more than 10,000 cacao farmers in 7 districts of the DR. Farmers own, on average, less than 2.5 hectares of land. Total production is about 16,000 metric tons of cacao beans per year. Over the years, quality of cacao and production yields have gone up considerably and farmers are receiving premium prices for their cacao and earning far more money from their farms. In addition, farmer co-ops receive a fair trade premium for all the fair trade beans that they sell. Last year the fair trade premium was $1.6 million and the money was used to provide training, improve education for farm families, build irrigation aqueducts and a variety of other projects carried out by the farmer co-ops together with CONACADO. 

Tomorrow we will visit cacao farmers in Hato Mayor, a district that is about 1.5 hours by car from Santo Domingo. We will have more to report after our visit with farmers tomorrow. 

In the CONACADO office, sporting the new hats given to us by Abel Fernadez.

After our CONACADO visit, we walked down to old town Santo Domingo and ended up at the Mimosa Restaurant for lunch.

Francisco, our waiter at Mimosa, helping us decide what to order - delicious!

After lunch, Ebie led us on an informative walking tour of old town Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo was established by Christopher Columbus when he was governor of the 'new' lands he had recently 'discovered'. Some buildings still date back to the early 1500's - probably the oldest colonial buildings in the Western Hemisphere. 

Ebie leading us on our tour of Old Town.

Catholic semiary building that dates back to the 1500's.

Lantern on seminary wall.

View down a street in old town Santo Domingo.

Colorful residential alley in old town.

Interior of the cathedral in old town.

Stained glass window in cathedral.

Same window, different lighting.

Large, ornately carved altar at the front of the cathedral.

Virgin Mary in center of altar.

Statue of Christopher Columbus, adorned by pigeons, in front of the cathedral.

Columbus pointing the way to the 'new world'.

Orchids growing in a city park.

Fortress in old town Santo Domingo. 

Kelly, Ebie and Connor looking out from the top of the fort.

Kelly, Connor, Charlie, Jean and Ginny on top of the fort.

The fort was constructed by using local stone and blocks of coral.

You can see the porous blocks of coral that make up this arched doorway in the fort. 

 Later in the afternoon it began to rain so we ducked into a nearby restaurant, discovered they have a 2 for 1 happy hour and stayed for pizza.

The brightly painted restaurant was Mexican and called the Zorro.

We celebrated Kevin's birthday with a cake provided by the Zorro folks.

A good time was had by all. Thank you, Kevin, for celebrating your birthday with us in Santo Domingo.

Tomorrow we will travel with CONACADO to Hato Mayor district to visit some cacao farmers and learn more about how cacao is grown, harvested and processed.