VOA慢速英语2020--海地的可可需要国际认可

The island nation of Haiti is slowly developing its cocoa industry. Cocoa is the main element used to make chocolate.

The business is helping¹ thousands of farmers earn better wages.

Haiti produces about 5,000 metric tons of cocoa each year. That is small compared to the 70,000 metric tons produced each year by neighboring Dominican Republic. But Haiti's development in the cocoa business is recent.

Feccano is a group of cocoa organizations in northern Haiti. It became the first group to organize exchanges in 2001 by making farmers' profits most important.

Guito Gilot is Feccano's commercial director. He said that in the past cocoa trees were destroyed because farmers did not consider the cocoa market profitable.

The group now works with more than 4,000 farmers in northern Haiti.

Feccano has been able to target the market for fine and sweet-smelling cocoa.

"Feccano's customers pay for quality: they don't have the New York Stock Exchange as a reference," Gilot said.

Haiti's private industries soon began investing in the cocoa industry, too. Until then, it had been supported only by non-governmental organizations and aid groups.

The company Produit des iles (PISA) entered the market in 2014.

Aline Etlicher directs research and development of new business at PISA.

"The producers we work with farm less than a hectare, often divided into several plots," she said, adding that "in Latin America, a small producer already owns four or five hectares."

Etlicher said the company buys cocoa the same day it is harvested. Farmers, then, no longer have to worry about drying and storing the cocoa to be sold to another business.

However, in recent months, collecting the cocoa has been difficult because many roads were often blocked because of social-political unrest.

Honoring organic and fair-trade approvals for the cocoa is tricky². But the Haitian style has made its mark internationally.

"With our customers, we are part of the 'bean to bar' movement of chocolate makers³ who transform the cocoa bean into the chocolate bar," Etlicher said.

She added that by not going through another company, Haitian producers have doubled the amount of money they make.

And processing of the cocoa beans remains⁴ local.

'Plant your cocoa'

Ralph Leroy lived for many years in Montreal, Canada before returning to Haiti as a high-end clothing designer.

His move to the cocoa industry began when he made clothes out of chocolate for a cooking trade show. He then trained for a year in Italy.

"The first week, I think I was insulted when the professor said, 'Chocolate is made for Europe. You there, plant your cocoa, we buy the cocoa and do the work,'" he remembered.

Today, Leroy runs Makaya, the chocolate company he founded in 2016. The tasty creations that come out of his workshop are very popular at parties. His company now has about 20 employees who share his love for chocolate.

Words in This Story

commercial – adj. related to or used in the buying and selling of goods and services

reference – n. the act of looking at or in something for information

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

3 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。