At VARTC, my local ‘partner organisation’, I share an office with Marie, who is full of beans and Head of Beans. This proximity delivers some colourful diversions from coconuts. In October there is the Little Harvest when a smaller crop of cocoa pods is harvested. As you can see to the right, this is a happy occasion. The pods are wheel-barrowed to an area where they are placed in heaps according to the variety. Then a group of ladies gather to crack them open and extract the moist beans. These are then placed in wooden boxes and fermented for 3 to 5 days. After that they are dried and eventually they go to a chocolate maker and via an elaborate process, end up as, well, chocolate.

On 19 October Marie asked me to accompany her on a visit to Aore island to

evaluate an aging cocoa plantation, from the horticultural (her) and economic (me) perspectives. After a 20 minute crossing from Luganville, the ferry shown on the left departed after dropping us at a beautiful beach. Facing inland I spotted a derelict Toyota ute that may have been adapted as a chicken shed. We crossed

a field and were hailed by the man we were due to meet. He owned the 500 property on the far side of the island, the  20 hectare cocoa plantation and the Toyota chicken shed. This was no ordinary chicken shed. While it lacked some of the niceties of cars, such as windows, front passenger seat, one roof support, driver’s door and brakes, it did prove to be an exquisite example of island transport. We stopped along the way, not abruptly of course, collected a few people and eventually charged up a hill, smoke billowing out and nearly asphyxiating us chaps on the back. But then a bump or two, and we entered a mature forest under which we found the aging cocoa trees. Marie did her inspection, I chatted to the owner about his coconut enterprise and eventually we all bounded back down the hill without incident and returned to VARTC late in the day. My side of the report was mostly completed the next day and although I’m still waiting for some hard data from Marie, I cannot see the cocoa becoming economic. A colourful trip though.