HISTORY

The following brief history of COCABO is a verbal account provided by Mr. Edgar Leopold Gallimore Edwards, the cooperative’s only surviving founding member in April 2009.

In the early fifties my mother Mary Gallimore went to Port Limon Costa Rica and met a gentleman who knew about cocoa exporting. He explained that if we could get fifty sacks of sun dried cocoa he would send a ship to Almirante and pick up our product to be taken to the United States. The gentleman’s name was Barton. My brother Ambrose Gallimore started to make inquiries of how we can get together to sell our cocoa beans to the USA. It so happened that one day a man by the name of Elridge McKnight came to visit us about forming a farming society. My brother then left and went with Mr. McKnight to meet with other farmers. After explaining how we can export our cocoa beans we started to organize into a group of farmers. After the group was made my brother went to the United Fruit company warehouse and asked them for the use of an empty warehouse. They gave him a room which we used to store the cocoa beans and do the bagging so that we could export them. Then Ambrose had the opportunity to go to Puerto Limon and contact Mr. Barton. Mr. Barton was very happy to know that we had a group that wanted to export to the US. He left Limon with my brother to make the first sale here in Almirante. When they arrived here he checked the grade of our bagged cocoa.

There were 250 bags of sun-dried cocoa. Barton sent a cable to offer the sacks to a company. They answered with an offer to buy the full amount at 32 cents a pound. Mr. Barton immediately accepted the offer and we shipped the beans by boat to puerto Colon. After reaching Colon the sacks went to the customs office Corredor de Aduana where they awaited permission to be shipped. The corredor offered shipment to an agency and my brother had to go to Panama to have the harbormaster sign the shipping papers. The harbormaster tried to organize the sale to a different company, but my brother refused. He also suggested that we should get the group together and form a cooperative. He explained that the buyers in Bocas were paying farmers 20 cents a pound.

My brother then finished with the shipping and payment details and returned to Bocas in order to pay the producers.

After the sale was over Ambrose talked to lawyer and founding member Emilio Duff. Being a lawyer, he started to look into how to form the society. The government told us that we have to have 1,800 dollars to start a cooperative. In the space of three months we were able to make the money to get the documents from the government. The Founding members of the cooperative were nineteen men and one woman. When the government officials asked what name to give the society my brother replied that the name would be Cooperativa de Cacao Bocatorena R.L. or COCABO for short.

At this point my brother and I started to go about the countryside to get more members. The cooperative bought a boat and he drove around to meet new members by sea. I went around recruiting new members by land in Guabito, Tiger Hill, and wherever there were farmers. After making the first shipment of cocoa from the fruit company’s warehouse the members decided to rent a house down in Barrio Frances de Almirante. And there we started to gather the cocoa beans to be exported to the US but now in the name of COCABO. The first shipment had been made in my brother’s name. We used the place we rented in Barrio Frances for 2 years and then we built our own building in the same neighborhood. We built the wooden warehouse and moved in on August 14^th 1954. We didn’t have the opportunity to get around like they can do now because there was no public transportation in those days. So there were nights when we finished our work and there was no transportation to get home. We had to make our beds on the floor with empty cocoa bags.

I am very glad that the coop has now expanded to more locations for collecting beans. They also sell other merchandise. We started this because members would come and receive their money and then go shopping for machetes and tools etc. so we started a hardware store so they could buy these supplies right here without having to go elsewhere.

Myself and my brother were both working in the office of United Fruit as timekeepers and foreman after 1952 we resigned in order to handle the paperwork of the coop. The pay wasn’t so good, so we bought a farm. We then planted 60ha when working for the coop. The government is currently re measuring the land to give the family a legal title. The train on Monday, Wednesday and Friday would bring the cocoa to the cooperative. My brother and I worked together.

Since then COCABO has grown up and begun many new projects, hired new staff, and implemented new programs…

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