Dr. Ellen Graber

One of the world’s most important tree commodity crops, cacao, is grown across the tropics belt in many nations of the Global South. More than 80% of the 5 million tons of cocoa produced annually is grown by small-holder farmers, and 70% of cocoa globally is grown in West Africa. The economies of the top two producing countries in the world, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, are dependent on cacao for a large part of their foreign currency. A typical family-run cacao farm encompasses 1 hectare with up to 1000 trees. Problems such as low fertility soils, destructive pathogens and pests, and a disappearance of natural pollinators have been plaguing the world’s cocoa growing regions for many decades. A warming and drying climate is adding additional pressures, resulting in a perfect storm of simultaneous and manifold biotic and abiotic stresses that threaten the future of cacao production. Millions of small-scale farmers growing cacao using old-fashioned methods are incapable of meeting these challenges. This presentation will focus on how intensive agriculture practices once unique to food production in semi-arid and arid areas can be adopted in cacao to increase production and reduce deforestation and poverty.