BOOKER TATE | BELIZE & MALAYSIA

BELIZE:

In the 1980’s the world sugar price collapsed to a nadir of 3 cents per pound. In Belize the sugar industry represented 30% of the economy and 90% of the foreign exchange. In addition the sector was upheld by a very large number of family farmers on their own lands. 85% of the population of Northern Belize were dependent on the sector. The idea of closing the industry was unthinkable. Instead it was turned into essentially a farmers’ cooperative. Farmers were paid an estimated cane price as they delivered cane to the factory and at the end of the season this payment was enhanced once the final sugar prices and factory performance were known. Mark Goodwin was Chairman of the Belize Sugar Industry until 1992.

MALAYSIA:

Being a mixed economy, it was easy for Booker Tate to offer seed capital here for new ventures, but always as a minority shareholder so that farms and industries were locally owned. Several estates were set up in Sabah and Sarawak with Booker Tate's own financial resources and the support of the local community.

The following conversation between Mark Goodwin and Meredith Belbin is an excerpt from the end of the first part of Mark's upcoming book:

"Meredith: Knowing the result of your personal preference questionnaire, I could have predicted the ethical way in which you have approached your early career. The ethics would underlie your respect for primordial society; I suspect they knew they could trust you.

Mark: This fascinating analysis you have made with your instrument reminds me of the tea estate we started in the late 80’s on the Baram river, which runs into the China Sea from the Kelabit Highlands in mid-eastern Borneo. Our local manager in Malaysia was Mike Waring who had a background as a tea planter. We spoke often with maddening frustration about the destruction of primordial Borneo societies like the Penan tribe or the Kayan and Kenyah tribes. The Penan were the only truly nomadic people left in Sarawak and amongst the last of the world's hunter-gatherers in Asia, still using blow pipes.  They had a traditional society where the children all stayed together in a long house like a child’s dormitory under the supervision of the grandparent generation.

The village system started to break down through the invasion of logging camps which encroached and hired the younger generation to work. Suddenly the men in their twenties had cash, glaring tee shirts and financial power which the village elders could not match. We felt it would be better if they had a different evolution with a collective cash society initially. We helped them to start a tea plantation by transferring the existing village hierarchy of elders onto the management of their own tea plantation. In this way the whole village continued to work together rather than a few being selected to go off to the logging camps. I wonder what happened to them. It is interesting as our approach was driven by our ethics and values towards protecting a primordial society."

This discussion, and your psychological “instruments”, have changed a number of paradigms on my motivation or what drove me. It is time to look at, and delve into, ideas of the construction of mind. Let’s see if we can separate the genetic aspects of behaviour from the effects of the environment."