The chocolate islands
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The mountainous archipelago of SãoTomé and Príncipe was once the world’s biggest exporter of cocoa. The twin island nation in the Gulf of Guinea was uninhabited until their discovery by Portuguese explorers in the fifteenth century. They brought slaves to work the land producing cash crops like sugar and coffee. In the 1890s these crops were replaced by cocoa and the islands became known as the biggest cocoa exporter in the world. The plantations were farmed first by slaves and then by forced, exploited islanders. When the horrific working conditions were exposed in the 1920s, chocolate manufacturers switched their source of beans to Ghana and Ivory Coast. SãoTomé’s ignominious reputation as the chocolate nation was over. Presenter Tamasin Ford went to visit the islands to take a look at the cocoa sector now.
Produced by Russell Newlove
Image: Chocolate making; Credit: Russell Newlove/BBC
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Sounds of the Rainforest. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm Tamason Ford and welcome to a special edition of Business Daily |
| 0:14.9 | from the tropical Twin Island Nation of Sautamay and Principate in the Gulf of Guinea. |
| 0:21.8 | This mountainous archipelago is bedewalled with rich, dense forest, |
| 0:27.8 | broken only by shards of volcanic rock, some as high as 2,000 metres above sea level. |
| 0:34.9 | These islands were uninhabited until their discovery by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century, |
| 0:40.3 | who brought slaves to work the land, producing cash crops like sugar and coffee. |
| 0:46.2 | In the 1890s, these crops were replaced by cocoa, |
| 0:49.8 | and the islands became the biggest cocoa exporter in the world. |
| 0:58.9 | A farmer slices ripe yellow and purple pods from the cocoa trees. |
| 1:04.4 | They fall to the ground ready for collection. |
| 1:08.3 | This is Rosa de Diogo Vaj in the northwest of Sautamaay. |
| 1:13.2 | Rosa is the Portuguese word for plantation or farm. |
| 1:19.6 | Coco trees here are grown in the middle of the rainforest. |
| 1:24.3 | They've got huge towering, providing the incredible shade that cocoa |
| 1:29.6 | trees need to produce good fruits. And we're at the start of the harvest, so you can already |
| 1:35.6 | see ripe, plump pods hanging from each of the trees. |
| 1:43.1 | You call me Ernest Tseita. 68-year-old Ernest, Seita. |
| 1:45.2 | Sixty-eight-year-old Ernest Rosetta |
| 1:47.3 | collects the pods and puts them in Hesse and Sacks. |
| 1:50.8 | He's been farming cocoa for 25 years. |
| 1:53.6 | He owns four hectares of land. |
... |
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