Q. Can you give us a brief history of Soguipah? What has happened in the past 12 years?
A: Soguipah is a state company. I was sent to Guinea in 1978-79 by the company whcih still employs me. The Guinean government wanted to see what could be done in the Agro-business. I came here with a team which stayed here for 6 months and went through the whole country. We thought that what could be developed here was oil and rubber plantations, so we made a plan for that. In 1981 everything was on paper. Finance was there, including institutional finance from the "Caise Nationale Economique (now the French Development Agency) and from the European Community. The president of my company decided that the whole thing should be executed, but the financier thought it was not a brilliant idea, so the thing died out.
In 1985 the new political regime asked us to update these studies for 1986. There was an evaluation together with the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Development Bank, the FED, the European Development Fund and the Caisse Française de Développement. It was decided to start the plantation company, a 10% state company, but managed by a private company as a private company. Our firm was asked to do that, so I stayed.
I was the first manager and I have been here from the start. Now, after 12 years I can say that I have helped to set up the company. I have done my part, now I need to see some new things, and that is why I am stepping down.
Q. You have seen the development of Soguipah from the start. Now this company is one of the largest exporters of palm oil...
A: Not one, the only and the largest one.
Actually the history of the company is no so interesting, but it shows that it is possible to work in Guinea, and to so at 1.000 Km away from Conakry, the capital city.
Q. Guinea has just started its development in the past 2-3 years. Its presence in the international markets for gold, diamonds and bauxite is being done slowly but surely. It also known it has large iron deposits in Mount Nimba, in the border with Sierra Leone...
A: With mount Nimba there is a controversy. It is a beautiful site, but environmentally it would be a pity to exploit it. In fact, it might be a much better idea to exploit a murch larger deposit 150 Km to the north. But the main thing is that large companies have started to be interested in Guinea. I believe it is important to operate in Guinea in the first place. Guinea has a very bad image. It is bad to say it, but it was earned. There have been vast promises that never took place. The mentality of the people after 26 years of ideological destruction has been badly damaged, there was even a virtual disappearance of the state, o that it did not exist any more. In fact, the structure to start new things had been eliminated. What is remarkable is the way the president Conté has managed to keep peace in the first place, and to slowly reform things. I should say that before you needed to be big in order to operate in Guinea, it was the only way to do business.
Let us not forget that we are a state company, we had support from the Guineans, and even if there were a lot of difficulties, we could work with the state in Guinea. In order to do that you have to be big or extremely well connected.
Q. Most of your production of destined to foreign markets, isn't it so?
A: Palm oil is basically for the local market. We grow it here and we have a big market here. South East Asia and South America have a better palm oil production than africa, but we have an excellent quality, and we improve and grow every day.
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Q. What about rubber?
A: Rubber was first exploited in Malaysia, and it is now big in Thailand. Rubber comes from the Amazon area. There is no one who has succeeded at a profitable rubber plantation in that area of Latin America. There is only one Michelin plantation in South Brazil which is working quite well. But it is really an exception because it is in an area where there is frost, and the parasites on the leaves are not developing due to the cold. They have been to a place where the enemy has got cold feet.
All this to say that in South America it is very difficult to make profitable rubber plantations. Here in Guinea, on the other hand, it is even better than in South East Asia. So we have a competitive advantage for the production of rubber. We are the best of the subregion, but not good enough yet to be competitive on the world market.
Regarding palm oil, it is destined mainly to the local market. It applies to the whole of West Africa. Production is mainly destined to local consumption. Only Ivory Coast is exporting palm oil for now.
Q. In some parts of the world they burn tropical forests in order to plant rubber of fast growing trees for paper. How do you manage the environment where you have your plantations?
A: Some people thing that Africa has to always be the last for everything. It is not true. In our company we have proven that a good environmental policy is there. Our branch of industry has a very bad name. We are burning, we are slashing big junks of tropical forests...etc. I can tell you that here we are planting only in areas which have been depleted before. And where there is no forest. In fact, we are creating a forest where there are no trees. I have to give you a small lecture about tropical agriculture. I think it is interesting to get a good picture. In traditional agriculture in Africa and part of South East Asia, the standard practice is to cut the trees and to burn everything. If you have no tools, no tractors, no horses, you still have to eat, so you slash and burn. That is called shifting cultivation, and all traditional agriculture is slash and burn. That means one year you are here, next year you are overgrown by the grass, so you have to move to the next spot, and you keep doing that all the time. They give the impression that slash and burn is a marvelous system. It could be so if you had 2 people per square Km. As soon as you have over 50 the whole system breaks down, because the forest does not have time to come back. So you get no trees. The whole coast area of Conakry for instance should be forest, but everything was cut.
The trees might be 5-7 years old but they they come, slash and burn for 500 kg of rice for a value of 135 US$. When you compare it with a marvelous forest which took 100 years to grow just being slashed and burnt, I find it totally uneconomic. There is an equilibrium when there is almost no population. Almost everywhere in the world the population is 100 or more people per square Km. The whole equilibrium is broken and the forest gone.
What do you do n such situation?, what most people do is sit and cry and blame the Agro-industry. In fact, it is traditional agriculture you have to blame. Nevertheless we are trying to be as ecologically conscious as possible, we are building forests where there were none, in areas that where not even suitable for agriculture. |
GUINEA
