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Accessing export markets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
For many small-scale growers, exporting produce brings multiple benefits, such as ensuring reliable demand and providing an opportunity to receive a higher price than selling locally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greenpath Food supply a range of global customers, including supermarkets and speciality businesses, with fresh produce such as avocados, green beans and perennial herbs. The supermarkets need to be confident that the right tonnage of product will arrive on a weekly basis, a demand which Greenpath Food are able to meet by working with a large number of small-scale growers. To keep supplying supermarkets, it is essential produce is competitively priced, and the organic certification is the ticket to assurance of a higher price for the fresh produce supplied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Grenada, the chocolate companies based on the island are dependent on tourism for local sales and the impact of the pandemic on tourism has made producers vulnerable too. It has pushed both growers and processors towards the export market. Since 2017, organic certified cocoa farms have been able to export directly to overseas customers, rather than pursuing the standard route to export in Grenada, which requires growers to sell directly to the government. For Bobbie\u2019s farm, this has allowed them to sell their cocoa at double the price compared to what they previously received. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding value in country<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When accessing export markets, it pays to add as much value as possible in-country. Greenpath Food have a pack house in Ethiopia, where beans are topped and tailed before being packed for export. Bobbie\u2019s family farm in Grenada takes a similar approach, by doing as much of the processing and packing as possible to add value to their produce. The cocoa is fermented for seven days after picking and then dried on-farm, while the nutmeg is dried for six to eight weeks before shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing using regenerative methods<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Greenpath Food work with growers who are committed to looking after their land by using low input systems. Growers are provided with seedlings from the company nursery, which uses seeds that are suitable for local growing conditions to provide resilient plants. They also have access to agronomist advisers, who have supported with water management systems to help regenerate the land and enable more regular, dependable harvests. Greenpath Food supports growers with the organic certification process and absorbs the cost on their behalf. Growers are also paid regularly to ensure they have a stable income. The company has reviewed the impact for growers, and found that many have been able to diversify their businesses by purchasing a small number of livestock and selling milk or eggs locally, increasing their resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Grenada, the methods used for growing nutmeg and cocoa on L\u2019Esterre Estate have been regenerating and adding value to the land for 300 years. Bobbie sees potential for the business to access additional income through carbon markets, however there is still a long way to go in terms of building the infrastructure for capturing data to make this work practically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n