|
Global demand for chocolate revives cocoa farms |
 |
|
Expatriate Blog
|
|
Monday, 11 August 2008 16:13 |
| | | | | INDIGENOUS people grew cocoa in Panama more than 2,000 years ago. Now, their descendants are reviving the crop to meet world demand for high-quality chocolate.
Throughout Central America, farmers are planting cocoa, taking advantage of high world cocoa prices and the premium their cocoa commands.
Grown by the ancient Maya in Mexico and Central America long before the arrival of the Spanish, cocoa also has a long tradition with the Ngobe people, native to the Panama-Costa Rica border region, as well as indigenous communities in Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
| | 
| 
| |
In the 1990s, the farmers abandoned the crop when the trees were hit by fungus and world prices were low.
Now gourmet chocolate companies are turning to growers in Central America to supply cocoa that can be labelled organic and “fair trade” – under which companies pledge to pay Third World farmers more for their crops.
The bulk of the world’s cocoa is grown in Africa, where cacao trees were imported by Portuguese colonisers in the 1800s.
Despite efforts to plant more cocoa, the scale of operations is still tiny on most Central American plots. By comparison, the Ivory Coast produces more than one million tonnes of cocoa a year.
Monday March 24, 2008 - Reuters | | | | |
|
