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Papua New Guinea has land of about 460,000 square kilometers, with 98% of her land covered by forests and rivers. In addition to staple foods such as sweet potato and cassava, animal protein food such as fish and hornworms are sold at local markets. However, due to guidance by several countries, most processed foods on sale at markets, including chocolate, are so far imported. Although Papua New Guinea is a major producer of cacao, the country still relies on import for chocolate.
To overcome the problem, OISCA Eco-Tech Training Center in Rabaul recently has started developing chocolate making technology to add value to their cacao. In order to get farmers another source of incomes and to minimize the further conversion of natural forests to cacao plantation, chocolate making would be a worthwhile challenge to be experimented for the first time. Although the training center already produced cacao for exports before, chocolate making had never been tried. OISCA cacao farm has operated since 1998. The produce of this cacao farm was used as raw material for their chocolate. After harvesting, fresh cacao beans were fermented, roasted, crushed, and kneaded in mortar for 8 hours. Although the taste was not as delicious as chocolate sold at sweet shops, reasonably good chocolate was made. Final product was displayed at an agricultural festival organized by the agricultural experimental station. Some leading government officials who tasted the chocolate expressed their surprise, saying “Is this really made here? Made by OISCA?”
The Eco-tech training center will continue to make efforts to improve the technique, and provide training in this subject for government's extension workers, teachers of vocational schools, and cacao farmers. They hope that this will be a meaningful source of incomes for village people in the future. |
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 Beans smashed, and while being reduced to powder, gradually turn into paste due to pressure and frictional heat
Cacao beans roasted and crushed
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 The paste put into an ice-cube tray, and frozen - completion of chocolate
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