Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 8.20
A typical scene on a west African cocoa farm. The start of heap fermentation in Ghana
and drying fermented beans—producing “golden standard” quality cocoa. (©Lambert)
nication). Additionally, the price of labour, its availability and capacity to manage
cocoa correctly also contributed to failure of cocoa plantations in Africa.
In the Asia Pacific region, the expansion in cocoa production happened quite late
despite cocoa being transferred from Mexico to Philippines by Spanish colonisers in
the sixteenth century (Dand
2011
; Wood and Lass
1985
). In Indonesia on the island
of Java, a few large plantations were established in the nineteenth century under
Dutch colonial rule, some still being operational. Most of these large old plantations
became government-owned and focused on production of the highly-valued, fine
flavoured but low yielding white bean Criollo-type cocoa that attracts a premium
price. Later, in 1980s, much larger cocoa expansion occurred in Indonesia on the
island of Sulawesi. This was driven by Sulawesi growers returning from Malaysia
where they served as labour in large cocoa estates and learned to grow the crop
(Dand
2011
). Currently, 80 % of Indonesian cocoa is produced in Sulawesi by small-
holder growers with one to two ha of land. A recent increase in cocoa production
occurred in Sumatra by smallholder growers responding to positive price indicators.
In Malaysia, cocoa expansion started in the 1980s in Sabah (Borneo) with 60 %
of production coming from large estates with areas between 1500 and 3000 ha and
the remainder from smaller farms less than 100 ha. Large plantations in Malaysia
were very active in cocoa research and have developed several high-yielding cocoa
clones that are highly valued. These plantations were also the first to start side graft-
ing old cocoa trees with new clones to rehabilitate them and boost productivity.
Malaysian production peaked by 1990 then declined sharply from an annual pro-
duction of 220,000 t (Dand
2011
) to current production of less than 10,000 t due to
low prices, lack of labour, cocoa pod borer infestation and plantations reinvesting
into oil palm. Oil palm is much less labour intensive with one worker able to man-
age 8-9 ha of oil palm compared to 1-2 ha of cocoa. Currently, only few small-
holders (5-15 ha) still produce cocoa with support from the Malaysian government
paying for their planting materials and inputs if they stay in cocoa.
A similar transition from plantation to smallholder production occurred in Papua
New Guinea. In 1975/76, 51 % of cocoa was produced in plantations (Wood and
