Organic Cocoa

West Africa produces 70% of the world’s cocoa. Ivory Coast and Ghana lead in cocoa sales. Liberia, which shares land borders is not in the top five cocoa producing countries in West Africa. Fourteen year of civil war, which started in 1989 and followed by Ebola in 2014 destroyed the cocoa sector. EbJel Flomo Legacy Enterprise, Inc. is a major player in reviving the cocoa industry in Liberia.

Our company grows and exports organic cocoa from Liberia. The following explains how we produce our single sourced cocoa: We buy the cocoa pods from neighboring Ivory Coast by going to the owner’s farm, harvesting and paying for them. After transporting them to our farm, we remove the beans from the pods, wash them and put the on nursery in profiled bags by a process called plugging. We continue to water them for a period of up to six months. During this time many of the young seedlings die and have to be replaced. They are vulnerable to insects. We do not use any synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides to help the seedlings grow or prevent insects from destroying them at this time or any other time in growing our cocoa. This is what sets us apart from other companies. WE ARE ORGANIC AND SINGLE SOURCED.

While the cocoa seedlings are on nursery and being maintained by two full time employees, we hire contractors to prepare the site by brushing the bush (farm), doing the layout and digging the holes. We plant the cocoa after a few months of soil rest. This allows organic matters such as animal droppings and leaves to fall in and decay. Transplanting begins in June or when the rain begins falling. We again hire contractors (mostly women) to transport and transplant the seedlings. Once the cocoa is underground, we underbrush the trees at least twice a year and do intermittent brushing as needed.

When the cocoa trees begin to develop pods, they become very vulnerable to the weather and a certain type of ants. Because we do not cut down a majority of the trees on the cocoa farm, the shade from these trees prevents the sunlight from reaching these young pods, thus causing many to turn black and dry out (black pod). The ants do not destroy the pods but cause a deformity on the pod. Workers go around the farm to remove the black pods and dispose of them to prevent spreading the fungus to the healthy pods.

During harvest, workers collect the yellow or orange pods from the trees and bring them to a designated location where they split open the pods and remove the beans. The beans are then fermented and put in a solar dryer and dried to the desire level. They are then put into sacks and ready to ship to customers.

Region: Liberia, West Africa, variety of cocoa, up-to-date and reliable data on farm/or farmers and productions, climate, soil, etc.