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

Page 23shed on the shore, where women nominated by the group pick off the spat (around 6-8cm DVM) and drill them for hanging on grow-out ropes. Around four months laterthe same process is used to harvest the grow-out ropes and re-hang the shell onchaplets. For each of these stages the women’s group is paid about 10 US cents peroyster. The total payment depends on the number of spat collected and processed, butis typically of the order of USD 20,000 per season. The women’s group makes thedecision about how workers and members will be remunerated, and what (if any)community projects the funds received will support.As regards Solomon Islands, the latter scenario is probably the most relevant. Under thisarrangement there are no capital costs to the women’s group as the pearl farming companyprovides all of the equipment required for processing. As the industry develops, someindividuals or groups might progress to the stage where they provide these facilitiesthemselves, and are able to earn higher amounts per spat as a result.6.6. Small-scale pearl farmingIt may be anticipated that, over time, community- or smallholder-based spat collection couldevolve to small-scale pearl farming operations in which individuals or community groupsretain some of the spat that they collect and use it for on-growing, seeding and eventualharvesting. These additional stages add complexity and cost to the spat collecting operationand therefore require greater organisational, management and technical skills, more capital,and a longer time horizon. At some stage such operations will require separate aquaculturelicences and policy must dictate when this occurs. Additionally, the commencement offoreign investment projects may encourage domestic investors to enter the industry, possiblyin partnership with existing or new foreign operators. In either case, the result may be agrowing number of relatively small-scale entrants to the industry over a period of 5 – 10years or more.Experience in French Polynesia and Cook Islands shows that many problems arise whensmall, inexperienced and unregulated operators start to account for a significant proportion ofindustry production. Small farms are the primary source of poor-quality and black marketpearls and do not have the management discipline or financial capacity to reject low-valueproduct in order to improve the value of better-grade pearls. As discussed above, poor qualitycontrol threatens the industry and policy may need to contain mechanisms for regulating salesby small-scale operators.In other Pacific Island countries, attempts to regulate and manage small farmers to keepinferior pearls off the market have been only partially successful. In a country such asAustralia, with significant resources to spend on monitoring, surveillance and enforcement, aregulatory approach to pearl quality may be feasible. However in most Pacific Islandcountries, including Solomon Islands, it would be naïve to imagine that governmentregulations or centralised marketing run by a public body would be effective in deterringsmall farmers from selling low-quality pearls and undermining the industry as a whole.This situation thus presents something of a quandary. Entry into the real business of pearlfarming, rather than just spat collection, could present significant opportunities for SolomonIsland communities and domestic investors; but in other Pacific Island countries wheresmallholders have become a major part of the industry, problems of pearl quality have arisenwhich have caused the industry to decline.The most promising way to address this problem in Solomon Islands, if and when it shouldarise, would seem to be to encourage the development of a ‘nucleus-estate’ model in whichsmallholder farms are required to be linked with larger commercial enterprises which can