An Important Cash Crop
Small Family Farms
Most of the world's cocoa is grown on small farms, not large
plantations. According to the International Cocoa Organization, 2.5
million farmers produce almost 90 percent of the world's cocoa on
5-10 acre holdings. Typically, cocoa is the family's main source of
cash. Cocoa provides important income for small farmers in developing
economies all over the world.
Price Cycles
Cycles of high and low cocoa prices impact the quality and quantity
of cocoa production. Like most other agricultural crops, cocoa
is subject to weather patterns and other influences which affect supply
and demand, which in turn affect price. For example, in the late 1970s
and early 1980s, high prices stimulated expansion in plantings. An
abundance of cocoa beans on the world market resulted in subsequent
price declines and a drop in farm income. Farmers could no longer
spend the money necessary to care for their cocoa trees and still
make a living, which in turn encouraged widespread losses from pests
and disease.
The Problem With Plantations
 Large, OLD STYLE cocoa plantation. |
The growing commercial demand for cocoa over the past century
resulted in large cocoa plantations, where trees are grown in full
sun and require extensive and costly fertilization and pest management.
When cocoa trees are planted row upon row in the direct sun like apple
orchards or orange groves, the trees become stressed and are more
susceptible to pests and disease. Soil is more easily depleted. In
addition, pests and disease can be passed more readily from tree to
tree under these conditions.
Disease
In the 1980s, Costa Rica's cocoa plantations were wiped out by Monilia
Pod Rot, a fungal disease that attacks the cocoa pods. Witches
Broom, a virulent disease, has devastated cocoa plantations in
parts of Brazil.
MONILIA Pod Rot |
|
WITCHES BROOM
Photo: Scott Bauer
|
|
