Sentencias a la luz de la interpretación del Tribunal Constitucional peruano

Findings so far show that the past exposure of businesses may have influenced the internationalisation activities of processing businesses in the clusters. The exposure of processing businesses in the clusters has been beneficial in that five out of the seven pineapple processing businesses interviewed confirmed that external sources of information were instrumental to their operations. In fact, it is through the exposure to international activities of a processor that critical knowledge about a unique breed of pineapple (MD2) was acquired for the benefit of the entire cluster.

The external exposure has become the means through which crop technology has been transferred into the pineapple cluster. The director of Pineapple case 4, through his exposure in Europe, was able to identify the MD2 breed of pineapple, which has a growing market demand. After locating the origin of the pineapple, he was able to establish good relationships and transferred the crop to Ghana in the year 2000. The manager of Pineapple case 4 explains the process through which the initial seedlings were brought into the country below.

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It appears that this entrepreneur served as the ‘pipeline’ through which new innovation in the form of a different breed of pineapple was made available to the pineapple cluster in Ghana. As the interceptor of such knowledge, this entrepreneur decoded the new knowledge by learning how to cultivate the crop.

The transmission of this new technology required collaborative efforts from ‘gatekeepers’ in the pineapple cluster. Through collaborative efforts with public sector research institutions they worked towards making the new technology accessible to businesses within the pineapple cluster, for example, by acclimatising the crop. The manager explains how the seeds from Costa Rica were acclimatised through the collaborative efforts of agronomists in Ghana and Costa Ricans to make the product available to other farmers in the cluster:

Well, the crop itself came into Ghana in the year 2000. It’s pineapple from Costa Rica. Initially we were into smooth cayenne, the local one; that’s what we were dealing with until we discovered this new variety from Costa Rica – that’s the MD2. So that’s how it started and it got to this country. We were the first people to bring the crop into the country. So ever since it came we also didn’t keep everything [to] ourselves; we gave it to our sister farmers so that they can grow it in Ghana, so we spread the variety throughout the whole of the country... we are the pioneers who started before the Ghana agronomist also did research to verify it and brought a new variety, almost the same variety, in to the system again; that’s two, so that we get more of the seed, so that’s how we started... Our director, Mr Koranteng, he was staying in Europe by then and he discovered the variety when he was in Italy. So he tracked it from its source and he was told that it was from Costa Rica, so he did follow up [in] that country. And he went there and saw the farmers and they gave him everything on it. They taught him how to produce the crops and everything that accompanies it (Pineapple case 4; Nsawam, 2014)

The finding also shows that, for effective transmission of this new technology, actors in the cluster worked with the owners of this technology to transfer their knowledge about the production of the pineapple into the pineapple cluster. By so doing, the processing businesses in the pineapple cluster are able to retain unique knowledge that is exclusive to the region. The strong external relationship and exposure of pineapple processing businesses offers them the opportunity take advantage of such technologies (see sections 5.3 and 6.2). The manager in Pineapple case 4 explains that through their initiative the custodians of the crop technology were invited to train pineapple producers within the cluster on how to prepare and cultivate this new product. This form of interaction with farmers in the cluster serves not only to transfer coded knowledge about the cultivation of pineapples but also some unwritten

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knowledge acquired over years in the cultivation of the product. Such linkages in the transfer of knowledge and technology in the pineapple cluster may minimise the bottlenecks associated in the transmission and absorption of external knowledge. As a result, farmers and processors in the pineapple cluster have benefited from the crop introduced. In fact, all of the processing businesses interviewed cultivate the externally introduced breed from Costa Rica. The MD2 breed of pineapple has been captured in Picture 6.1 below.

... [It] initially wasn’t favourable with the climate over here because of the heat. So we acclimatised it. That is where the Ghana agronomist came in to do, yeah ... when we started, the initial objective was to produce more of the seed, that’s the packets, or the plantlets, so that was the initial objective before we considered it into, for its production into the fruit itself. So from there that’s where we started growing more… how to get more of the fruits, we plant more and we now aim for the fruit for its exportation. And also we did that [with] the help of the Costa Ricans. My boss invited them here and they came to educate us on the planting, the structuring, the fertilisation, and everything on it. So they came to Ghana and educated us, we and the sister farmers all. We did the first training at our farms, that’s where the first training took place, before the Ministry of Agriculture also came into the initiative, also took the initiative... [And] ...we have benefitted hugely from them and people have benefited hugely from it (Pineapple case 4; Nsawam, 2014)

Picture 6.1: MD2 Pineapples from Costa Rica

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