With right incentives, the prospects for Fiji developing a major cocoa industry looks very bright particularly with its good quality cocoa beans, says a Swedish non government organisation.

Cocoa Bello, whose purpose is to foster and execute development projects in developing countries in close co-operation with national and international institutions and organizations, says Fiji certainly has the prerequisites to succeed.

"If the right incentives are taken and the cocoa industry gets the right stimulation the prospects look very bright," Cocoa Bello project manager Fabian Rimfors says.

"Fiji's opportunities lies in the unexploited market of high quality processing of cocoa," he added.

Fiji's cocoa industry has been on the decline since the early 1990s. At its peak, Fiji had been exporting 200 tonnes of cocoa beans, but that has dropped to 30 tonnes a year now.

A disease outbreak, black pods, around 10 years ago and a hurricane around the same time badly affected Fiji's cocoa plantations. With no support from government, cocoa production soon declined with many of the 200 farmers ceasing cocoa farming altogether. About 30 farmers currently remain.

Cocoa Bello is currently working together with the Fiji sister group Tailevu Province Cocoa Growers and Producers Co-operative Association Limited in a cultural and knowledge exchange project within the cocoa industry.

The project "cocoa - from farming to retailing", aims to create a greater understanding of the need of a sustainable cocoa cultivation and fair trade within the cocoa industry and is supported by SIDA (Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency).

According to Rimfors, imported chocolate in Fiji is generally of low quality and has poor nutritional value.

"Manufacturing Fijian made chocolate of high quality and high nutritional value by utilizing already available Fijian resources offers a better alternative to imported ones."

Rimfors says that Fiji has several different varieties of cocoa, some of which are of very good quality. "So currently there is no need to bring in new varieties."

He says the idea is to manufacture drinking chocolate using traditional methods which keeps the natural composition of the cocoa beans intact and nutrients high, without adding artificial components.

Rimfors says that currently they will be concentrating on already existing cocoa plantations in the Tailevu area where there are many farmers, but of which the majority have dormant cocoa plantations.

On marketing, Rimfors says that distribution is in the future "but different products in different packaging address different markets, and thereby covering much of the plausible market."

Rimfors says the main reason for the project, is to provide cocoa farmers and their co-operative with the knowledge they lack of processing and marketing products made from their commodity.

On how much investment would be needed to get the industry back on its feet. Rimfors says all it needs, is basically just time and interest from the involved parties.

"We supply the knowledge and Fiji the resources."

Rimfors says Cocoa Bello aims at integrating the principles of sustainable development with competitive production by contributing with transfer of knowledge and international exchange of experiences.

How this industry fares, remains to be seen.