Cocoa Farming

Cocoa beans are the product of the cocoa tree. The origin of the cocoa tree is disputed. Some say it comes from the Amazon basin in Brazil, others place it in the Orinoco valley in Venezuela, while others claim it originated in Central America.

We all know that, wherever it lives, cocoa is a tropical plant that thrives only in hot, rainy climates.

The cocoa tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs to be protected from the wind by other, taller trees and requires shade. A newly planted cocoa seedling is often sheltered by a different type of tree. It is normal to plant food crops for shade such as banana, plantain, or coconut. Rubber trees and forest trees are also used for shade. Once established, however, cocoa trees can grow in full sun, provided the soil is fertile and cultivation is intensive. Cocoa plantations, usually located in valleys or coastal plains, must have well-distributed rainfall and rich, well-drained soil.

As a rule, cocoa trees start in a nursery where seeds from high-yielding trees are planted in fibre baskets or plastic bags. The seedlings grow so fast that they are ready to be transplanted within a few months. With pruning and careful cultivation, trees of most strains will begin to bear fruit from the fifth year.

Everything about the tree is as colourful as its history. Evergreen, the cocoa tree has large, glossy leaves that are red when young and green when mature. Layers of sticky moss and colourful lichens are often found on the bark of the trunk and, in some regions, lovely little orchids grow on its branches. The tree produces thousands of tiny waxy pink or white five-petalled flowers that gather on the trunk and older branches. But only three to ten percent will ripen.

Ripe cocoa pods nearly ready for harvest: the fruit, which will eventually be turned into chocolate, appears as green, yellow or brown pods on the tree's trunk and main branches.

At maturity, the cultivated tree is between 15 and 25 feet tall, although the tree in the wild can reach a height of 60 feet or more.

The potential age of a tree is open to speculation. Some trees are known to be over 200 years old, but no one has determined the species' real lifespan. However, after 25 years the economic usefulness of a tree can be called into question, and it often becomes desirable to replant with younger trees.

Although the cocoa tree bears fruit (or pods) all year round, harvesting is usually seasonal. The pods are of various types because cocoa trees pollinate freely. These types can be reduced to three classifications: Criollo, the prince of cocoas, is a sweet pod with thin, light-coloured skin and a unique, pleasant aroma. Forastero, a more abundant type, is easier to grow and has a thick-walled pod and a pungent aroma. Trinitario, which is supposed to be a natural cross with strains of the other two types, shows a wide variety of characteristics, but generally has a good taste and aromatic flavour; and these trees are particularly suited to cultivation.

In the Western Hemisphere, plantations made up of a single type of cocoa tree are rare. Even individual trees showing all the characteristics of a specific type are rare. Uniformity exists only where cocoa plantations have been developed from rooted branch cuttings of single mother trees.

Fully ripe cocoa. In recent years, cocoa growers have increasingly turned to hybridisation to improve bean quality and make it more resistant to disease. Scientists using advanced biotechnology techniques are also trying to improve cocoa quality and disease resistance.

Picking ripe cocoa pods is not an easy task. The tree is so fragile and its roots so shallow that workers cannot risk injuring it by climbing to reach the pods on the highest branches.

The planter sends his tumbadores, or pickers, into the fields with long-handled, mitten-shaped steel knives that can reach the highest pods and cut them without injuring the tree's soft bark. Machetes are used for pods growing within reach on the lower trunk.

It takes training and experience to know by appearance which fruit is ripe and ready to be cut. Ripe pods are found on the trees all the time, because the growing season in the tropics, with its well-distributed rainfall, is continuous.

In most localities, the main crop lasts several months and the mid-crop lasts several more. Climatic differences lead to wide variations in harvest times, with frequent fluctuations from year to year, even in the same place.