Stimulating investment in pearl farming in ... - World Fish Center

Page 6million; in 2002, it exported over 11 tonnes, worth about the same amount. Average pearlprices have fallen from around US$ 35/ gramme to about US$ 14/ gramme in the past tenyears.The government in French Polynesia has spent many years attempting to address theproblems of poor pearl quality, but with mixed success. Larger farming operations producesufficient pearl volumes to organise and run their own marketing networks or participate inauctions, often overseas. Larger operators are generally conscious of quality issues and areable to refrain from marketing low-grade or poor-quality produce. Smaller family farms,however, do not generally have direct access to organised marketing networks and often selltheir products indiscriminately by hawking them to visiting buyers or overseas jewelleryproducers. The sale of low-grade pearls in this way leads to a decline in the reputation andvalue of all pearls from that source. Negative perceptions of pearl quality may initially relateto an individual farm or farmer, or a given island or area, but will eventually affect thereputation of the country as a whole.Initially the French Polynesian government established a cooperative to market the pearlsproduced by smaller farms, pooling the production from over 1,000 small operators andthereby enabling them to participate in volume auctions and marketing networks.Membership in the cooperative gave small farmers access to government services includingtechnical advice, access to seeding technicians, low-cost farming materials and subsidisedloans, in exchange for which farmers were obligated to market their pearls through thecooperative. Low-grade pearls were ceremonially destroyed each year during high-profilepublic events intended to promote or restore overseas confidence in the quality of FrenchPolynesian pearls. However many farmers found ways to hide their poor quality pearls andkeep them out of the cooperative marketing network, instead selling them on the blackmarket. This process is said to have been aided by the growing number of local pearl seedingtechnicians, whose pay expectations were less than those of foreign technicians and who mayhave been less rigorous in regard to recording and controlling the pearls being harvested.In subsequent years the French Polynesian authorities have attempted to put in place anindustry code of practice, an active pearl marketing campaign that serves the industry as awhole, and a comprehensive system of quality control and certification, in which eachapproved pearl is sold along with an X-ray demonstrating the nacre thickness, as well as agovernment certificate of authenticity. These measures may have helped slow down thefalling image and value of French Polynesian pearls, but have not completely arrested it, andthe industry continues to decline. There is still a great deal of leakage, with large volumes ofpoor quality pearls continuing to enter the market. This undermines attempts by bothgovernment and large-scale producers to maintain the rarity value and exclusive image oftheir product.The second most important producer in the Pacific Islands region is Cook Islands, where theindustry was catalysed largely by developers from neighbouring French Polynesia whobrought technical skills and investment funds to the country. The Cook Islands industryproduced about US$18 million worth of pearls at its peak in 2000, but has declined since thattime, with production of only about US$2 million in 2005. A major disease outbreak at theend of 2000, attributed mainly to overstocking and poor farming practices, decimated theindustry, and it has still not fully recovered. Cook Islands has suffered more developmentproblems than French Polynesia, including, in addition to disease, conflicts among farmersand persistent marketing of low-grade pearls, which has undermined prices in general andgiven Cook Islands a widespread reputation as a producer of a low-grade product.