Cacao
Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) was cultivated by the Mayas over two thousand years ago. The Latin name which, roughly translated, means "food of the gods".
Cacao is now cultivated on over 70 000 km worldwide. Cte d'Ivoire produces 40 percent of world cacao, Ghana and Indonesia each produce about 15 percent, and Brazil, Nigeria, Cameroon Ecuador, and Venezuela produce smaller amounts. (Wikipedia)
Current breeding material is based on a large number of accessions, more than 2,500 seedlings, derived from only around 50 wild trees collected some 40 years ago.
At one time, cacao was cultivated on huge plantations. Now five or six million smallholder farmers, each with about 1000 trees on one or two hectares, supply almost seven out of every eight beans on the market.
Biodiversity and livelihoods under threat
Pests and diseases take up to a third of the crop each year, and for most small growers the cost of chemical protection makes it unaffordable. Losses can be huge. Before Witches broom arrived in Bahia in the 1980s this Brazilian state exported some 400,000 tonnes of cocoa beans a year. Today the figure is below 130,000 tonnes. As a result, many farmers are abandoning cacao, and that threatens the diversity on which future breeding efforts depend. Brazil is a vital reservoir of biodiversity but if cacao production there vanishes, pressure to cut down the remaining forest will increase as people struggle to make a living. When the forest goes, it will take with it the wild cocoa trees that carry the genetic resources the crop will need in future (not to mention other wild trees and plants whose genetic value is yet unknown). These threats to the growers jeopardize future supplies of the high-quality beans that chocolate eaters want.
Diseases of cacao
Three main fungal diseases attack cacao. Black pod rot is caused by two species of Phytophthora, P. palmivora and P. megakarya, which are difficult to distinguish in the field. Moniliophthora roreri causes Frosty pod rot, which gets its name from the masses of spores that turn the surface of the pod white. And Witches broom is the result of infection by Crinipellis perniciosa, which subverts the tree into sending up deformed shoots and flower clusters and also makes the pods unusable.
Taken from Sweet Partnership Helps Safeguard Worlds Cocoa Supply (Annual Report 2003)
