Indigenously Produced Organic Fruit

“Without the cooperation with the indigenous people,” Xavier Richard knows, “our company would never have been able to thrive as it has.” Since its establishment in 1987, Amazon Caribbean Ltd. (Amcar) has relied on the efforts of thousands of indigenous people from the Arawack, Warrau and Carib tribes in Guyana. In the jungle of the Barima-Waini Basin, they collect the raw materials for Amcar’s products: hearts of palm and pineapple. “Our mission,” the company states accordingly, “is to generate, in partnership with the people in Guyana, economic value added from naturally growing products.”

In his factory hidden in the jungle, the French adventurer Pierre Saint-Arroman has taught indigenous workers how to harvest certified organic hearts of palm and pineapples, pack them in cans and ship them to customers in Europe’s organic stores and U.S. malls. With these goods, Amcar and the indigenous people create “benefits for everyone involved”, Richard notes in summarizing the basic business idea. Economic success is, of course, important to him and Pierre Saint-Arroman – but at the same time, they want to help the inhabitants of the Orionoco Delta. “In the first 15 years of our work, Guyana went through economic crises,” Xavier Richard remembers. “Today, the people earn a secure income from Amcar.”

The success story began as an adventure story: When Pierre Saint-Arroman travelled to the South American country in 1983, he actually wanted to dig for uranium. Guyana lives from the exploitation of its bauxite, diamond and gold mines, and with the experience he had gathered in the African bush, Saint-Arroman wanted to sell the ore in Europe as raw material for energy production. But the deal fell apart. Saint-Arroman stayed because he sensed the fresh political wind blowing in Guyana back then. The country was looking for foreign investors. He met Xavier Richard, and the two of them “copied the know-how for processing hearts of palm from the neighbours in Venezuela and, with Dennis Wilson, Dennis Ramascindo and George Uthandi, built our own factory in Drum Hill,” Richard reminisces. The new entrepreneurs obtained the material for the mill from the rain forest on the Barima River. They also relied on the knowledge of their hired indigenous helpers: a first win-win business, from which the families living there have also profited from the very beginning.

The company trained 500 indigenous people as organic farmers in an effort supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and this South American country’s government. “Not only did Amcar secure its supply of organic raw materials,” the report states, “at the same time it secured the indigenous people a sustainable income.” Even today, the only connection to the cities on the ocean coast remains the boat trip through the jungle along the river and delta, which often takes up to two days. On the barges, Amcar employees transport food, clothing and fuel to the factory and carry their products to the harbour at Georgetown on the north coast.

“Even in the first year, our employees’ families harvested 13 twenty-foot containers of hearts of palm,” says Xavier Richard, looking back at the company’s start, “which we could ship as exports to Europe.” With this, the company showed how much potential there is in Guyana’s little-used agriculture. The secret lies in the broad, pristine tracts of land, which are mostly overgrown by jungle. They are fully untouched by agrochemicals and so could be used for organic farming within a short time, avoiding long transition times.

Until Amcar was established, nobody had thought of selling the fruit or vegetables harvested in Guyana as organic food. But Richard and Saint-Arroman added another argument: They vaunt their cooperation with the indigenous people to the affluent consumers in far-away Europe and Arabia by offering hearts of palm and pineapple not just as “organic”, but also as “indigenous” fruit. And so they gain a second bonus from their collaboration with the indigenous peoples of South America. “Amcar proves,” they announce on their Internet site, “how we can benefit from the added value in the market.” And their products, ecologically produced by indigenous people, enjoy disproportional success with the customers.“ Annual growth in 2000 was almost nine percent and quickly jumped to 20 percent in 2005,” Amcar notes with satisfaction: “Investment in the professional processing of these non-traditional agricultural products can thus become an engine of growth.” And so in the company founders’ vision, the indigenous people would gain a key role in the global market: Their land and knowledge provide future generations with natural food and medicine.

For Amcar, the basis of this business remains the hearts of palm. Their harvesting, the company emphasizes, is absolutely harmless for the natural environment in the jungle of Guyana, for the Euterpe oleracea are not cultivated in plantations, but grow wild in the forest. “People intervene only when harvesting,” Amcar says, describing this nature-friendly activity. To make sure that it stays this way, the company trains Guyana’s indigenous farmers to take lasting care of the jungle land. “This keeps the Amerindians from using non-ecological production methods,” judged the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UWI Institute of Business in their 2005 volume The Millennium Goals and the Private Sector, The Caribbean Experience.

Consistent with this, CEO Pierre Saint-Arroman signed the Global Compact membership declaration for Amcar back in 2000. And consistent in its pursuit of these commitments, Amcar organises the food supply of the indigenous communities at affordable prices. The company also supplies transportation for the remote region: Their boats are usually the only connection to the world outside the jungle, and certainly the fastest.

Together with the Red Cross in Guyana, the company offers health courses for employees’ families as well as for other members of the indigenous village communities. These are meant to fight malaria and inform people how to better protect themselves against infection with AIDS. The company’s commitment also includes education for the employees’ children and further development of workers’ technical skills.

In all this work, the two entrepreneurs always keep the people with whom they work in view. And their commitment has not gone without recognition: In 2004 the Amcar founders were commended in “The World Business Awards in support of the Millennium Development Goals