The certificate was only one of several that emerged from the prestigious Salon du
Chocolat in Paris, the annual summit of the world's master chocolatiers. But it may be
enough to start a revolution in Peru. In October 2009, chocolate produced from the cacao
beans of a small agricultural cooperative deep in one of the country's rainforests was
named the most aromatic in the world by the Salon. "We used to be known for making
cocaine paste, but now we are known for chocolate," says Elena Rios, 52, secretary of the
Tocache Agroindustrial Cooperative. Rios herself gave up growing coca leaves 10 years
ago, opting to take part in a program to replace her plants with cacao. "There were only
12 of us when we started, now we have hundreds. Our success is contagious. No one
wants to grow coca in Tocache, everyone is thinking about chocolate."
Indeed, such is the local excitement that Peru's San Martin department, where Tocache is
located, wants to put itself on the map as the chocolate capital of the world. Located in
the lush tropics where the Andes mountain range gives way to the northern Amazon rain
forest, San Martin has a wilder reputation from its recent past: for years it was a bastion
for the rebels of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and the much more violent
Maoist fighters of the Shining Path. Hand-in-hand with subversion came drug trafficking,
with the surrounding countryside perfect terrain for coca, from which cocaine is
processed.
While the two subversive groups have been defeated, San Martin still has some coca—
around 800 acres according to the latest U.N. survey on coca crops— but that is
minuscule compared to what it used to cultivate. Coffee and cacao (chocolate) farms have
taken hold instead. TheU.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) talks about a "San
Martin model" as a success story for replacing coca with legal crops. Chocolate is leading
the way.
-Complete article a Time's web site:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1957708,00.html
