Sign of Recovery
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
Samoa Cocoa Shows No Sign of Recovery
From Our Own Correspondent APIA, March 24.
WESTERN Samoa’s cocoa boom seems to be over. Prosperity, which was based on the returns which Samoan and European planters have been getting for their cocoa, during the last few years, could easily turn into a depression.
Over one thousand tons of cocoa have accumulated in Apia sheds and overseas buyers, even at £lOO to £l2O per ton FOB, Apia, (less than half the amount it brought a few months ago) are still re luctant. Growers are getting about £BO net, which is still about three times more than cocoa was worth in 1939. (First grade Accra cocoa was bringing £25/10/per ton in Sydney in mid-1939.) Adverse weather conditions —persistent and excessive rain and high winds —have affected the coming cocoa crop also—and to add to the present attack of doldrums, local foodstuff is in short supply.
This may be the result of past prosperity when Samoans neglected their gardens and banana plantations in order to con centrate on cocoa. It is believed now, that the export of bananas to NZ will have to be curtailed.