The timing of the SROS Koko Market promo last Friday at the STA Cultural Village especially for farmers is puzzling.
So too is the location in the centre of Apia where tourists are encouraged to hangout not cocoa planters.
We are in our cyclone season. Hurricane winds and cocoa plantations do not get along well together and farmers know that too well.
The damages to the cocoa plants from gusting air sweeping across the length and breadth of the plantation is not what farmers want to be reminded of.
So what is the point of promoting cocoa at a time when farmers are more worried about a cyclone and the painful costs they may bring?
Calling on farmers to meet up in Apia is baffling too. The dry north western end of Savaii is cocoa country where sunshine weather is ideal.
Unfortunately, the area is also the most prone to cyclones.
Why would the average cocoa farmer there, want to jump in a car and then a boat and on to a car again that takes almost a full days travel, to get to Apia and sit in a one day exchange of expertise on a produce that they know all about?
How many are willing to take the trouble to do all that traveling while the fear of a cyclone looms high?
Why Apia? What about the organisers holding it in Savaii or in selected locations around the country to encourage more cocoa planters to attend?
Why not wait until after the cyclone season?
“……when PM Fiame is there to open the gathering, what better publicity can organisers hope for, dear?