Initiatives like Filha do Combu are still not the norm in Brazil. Most of the country’s cocoa sector is based on an agribusiness model, in which smallholder farmers or low-income workers — sometimes under similar to slavery working conditions — plant and harvest the fruit, selling it to companies that produce cocoa-derived products.
According to the National Association of Cocoa Processors (AIPC), only four companies process 90 percent of the country’s cocoa, with three of them being transnational (Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Barry Callebaut) and one Brazilian (Indeca).
For Francisco Mendes Costa, an expert on cocoa production and co-author of the book “Cocoa, Wealth of the Poor,” there is only one way to surpass this model.
“Small producers themselves starting to produce chocolate instead of just selling the beans,” he said, in an interview with Mongabay. “This is a solution that is already being sought. Local residents are now running after ways to industrialize their product.”
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (Mapa), cocoa products had a turnover increase of eight percent this year in Brazil. Although experts point to a rise in the number of tree-to-bar small producers as well, data about this specific kind of production is still scarce. Existing data usually mixes up tree-to-bar producers with bean-to-bar ones — those who buy cocoa beans to produce their own chocolate.
The rise of local chocolate production is good not only for communities’ economy, but also for the environment. Francisco explains that cocoa farming, when well managed, helps to preserve the original vegetation and biodiversity.
“Cocoa grows under the shades of the trees, so there is a symbiosis between plantation and forest,” he said.
Pesticides are also not necessary for the plantation in Filha do Combu’s case, since cocoa is native to the region.
“We use sustainable techniques to have better lighting over the cocoa trees, but there is no need to control plagues as there is a natural balance,” said owner Izete Costa.
A big challenge for tree-to-bar producers is how to keep their business running. Francisco explained that the lack of associationism among producers undermines their chances of achieving success and competing with big companies.
“Small associations are often created, but they usually don’t last for long. The habit of negotiating through cooperatives is not consolidated,” he said.
Lack of investment
This story first appeared on Mongabay
South Africa Today – Environment
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
