OVFJ wants to promote cocoa production in Haiti

For years now the organization called  » Òganizasyon Vizyon Fòs Jenès  » (OVFJ) is engaged in a fight to promote and enhance national production. Indeed, the OVFJ is developing a project that involves the planting of fifty thousand cocoa trees during the period from January to May 2020 in the Nord department, specifically Plaine du Nord.

According to available data, annual exports of cocoa are around 450 million gourdes. This sector accounts for 25% of total exports of primary products in the country. The sector generates thousands of jobs and plays a key role in the conservatory management of water, soil and biodiversity in the country in general. Given the importance of this sector in the national economy, the OVFJ through its program called « yon Ayiti vet » intends to plant more than 50 thousand seedlings of cocoa.

« This project aims to enhance cocoa production. It covers areas as varied as planting techniques; grafting or maintenance improvement. The program also offers practical solutions to problems in the cocoa production and processing chain », said agronomists from the OVFJ. Further, according to these agronomists, this project aims to improve domestic cocoa production in the North, specifically at Plaine du Nord.

They also stressed that this project aims to strengthen the cocoa industry. « It will be carried out in close collaboration with members of the Organization, farmers, technicians and other people living in this locality », it was said, adding that more than 60% of the peasant population benefits from the benefits of this initiative. initiative. « The farmers who participate in this program will be supervised by agronomists consultants », they persist.

Other departments of the country will benefit from this project, according to these agronomists. In this sense, it has been indicated, this project will be continuous in another department with the same techniques acquired through different sections of the organization for the evaluation of the work.

It is important to emphasize that the cocoa tree is a fruit tree that produces cocoa beans. This tree can wait about 5 to 6 meters high, grown in the shade of other trees, its culture varies at a temperature of 25 C maximum and 10 C at the minimum, but evolves in hot and humid climate.

The cocoa tree blooms from the age of three and could live up to forty years, its fruit is the basis of the production of chocolate that is very consumed in the world. And, being a tropical country, Haiti can produce it in quantity, while we were one of the producing countries of this product. Deforestation is the basis of our considerable decline and also the various insect attacks and epidemics related to its culture.