Mongabay Series: Forests of the World
As Colombia seeks a way forward after part of a century of war, the cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) may have a role to play. Called the food of the gods, this robust tropical wood has an exceptional social and environmental promise in the insoluble. extensions of the country.
For starters, cocoa can grow at many of the same altitudes as coca, the banned plant from which cocaine is extracted, and its value in line with the cocoa pound makes it an ideal substitute in the confines of Colombia, where transport prices make other crops as unviable as much as possible. .
Unlike coca, which is harvested on the stem several times a year, cocoa is a perennial tree that keeps the soil.
Cocoa is also a small crop par excellence, the maximum exquisite chocolate from meticulously controlled polyculture systems a tropical cover.
Today, Colombia is looking at high-end markets that value this care and delicacy: it ranked 10th among cocoa exporting countries by volume, 95% of the cocoa it exports is classified as smart quality, and the grape types recently rediscovered. they win foreign awards every year. . .
But Colombia has not yet exploited the full potential of cocoa, and yields consistent with the hectare have barely moved in recent decades, largely because cocoa is a small crop grown in the interior of the country, where schools and extension facilities are hard to find. as little as two hundred or three hundred kilograms consistent with hectare (about 180 to 270 pounds consistent with acre), while its potential is 2 to four metric tons consisting of hectare (1,800 to 3,600 pounds consistent with acre).
According to existing estimates, 60% of production is lost due to pests and diseases due to lack of data at the farm level, at a total cost of about $1 billion consistent with the year Colombia’s exports are less than a third of those of Ecuador, its southern neighbor much smaller. But in the interior of Colombia, a handful of generation corporations can change course by leveraging satellite data, Internet of Things (IoT) programs, and traditional programs.
One of them is Agricompas, an agricultural resolution company whose platform, EcoProMIS, was developed to provide monitoring and sustainability resolution to Colombian farmers who grow oil palms and rice.
“We are now digitizing cocoa, building a knowledge analysis platform that creates wisdom for producers,” said Roelof Kramer, CEO of Agricompas, in Mongabay from the company’s offices in Oxford, UK.
The business style is based on the sale of anonymous knowledge to third parties, such as merchants and insurers, for prediction and traceability purposes. “Farmers have so few resources that they invest the little fertilizer they have at the right time. The information means you can optimize the means yes,” Kramer said.
Field studies conducted through Agricompas in partnership with the Colombian Federation of Cocoa Producers (Fedecacao) and funded through the UK Prosperity Fund indicate that women would possibly have a special role to play in the long term cocoa in Colombia.
On the one hand, women in their initial pattern of 48 cocoa producers from two other regions have more smartphones than men.
Women are also very concerned in the harvest, post-harvest and marketing stages, where about 70% of the price of cocoa is determined. most relevant quality. ” At Agricompas, we need to encourage women’s participation and visibility in the cocoa price chain,” Deborah Foy, Agricompas’ representative, wrote on the company’s blog.
There are also other stakeholders.
“We are running to put cocoa on a coffee-like trajectory,” said Mark Jarman, who manages another pilot assignment that says it has reached 350 cocoa producers so far, referring to one of Colombia’s biggest agricultural successes. which can grow on the slopes, is Colombia’s main export product after fossil fuels, and the cultural landscape that has evolved around it has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Jarman is head of agriculture at Satellite Applications Catapult, one of the UK government-funded innovation centers. With High Value Manufacturing Catapult, they lead COLCO, which is an alliance of independent corporations in Colombia and the United Kingdom and a virtual platform in which these allies create programs to optimize colombia’s entire cocoa chain, selling seeds.
“Everyone is gaining value,” Jarman told Mongabay. “But we are all really working with a non-unusual purpose and vision, which are necessarily smallholder farmers. That’s how we transform the industry. “
Environmental coverage is one of COLCO’s objectives: if more cocoa can be produced according to the hectare, then farmers’ incomes may be higher without having to transparent forests to obtain more cultivated land.
In fact, in 2018 Colombia signed the Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative agreement that commits it to 0 deforestation in the cocoa chain of origin, and if the country wants to deliver on that promise, it will have to find a way for small producers to make more effective land they already own.
One of colCO’s wheel spokes is Plantwise, a plant clinic operator who has worked with more than 40 million smallholder farmers worldwide. Plantwise uses a running shoe education method where farmers qualified as herbalists and a resource for their peers. where farmers can access plant fitness data and post photographs of their cocoa farmers for participatory advice.
WeatherSafe is another member of COLCO’s family circle that combines processed satellite images, weather data, and agricultural knowledge to provide text message threat updates where farmers can take action at the right time.
“Right now [they get] recommendations every two weeks from an extension service,” Jarman said. “If you can do it on a daily basis, it will exponentially increase your ability to make a more important decision. “
The COLCO generation ecosystem also includes a wise column published in 3-d equipped with sensors that are inserted into boxes in which cocoa undergoes a fermentation procedure one week before chocolate.
Cocoa fermentation takes place either in ms or in nearby agricultural cooperatives, in urban centers. The procedure requires a maximum degree of mystical sensitivity and is simple to spoil, but this post-box control is what determines to the maximum the flavor profile of the eventual chocolate bar, which also distinguishes Colombian cocoa from the largest exporters in Africa.
There is also COLCO’s smart tower, designed through MTC and manufactured through the Colombian company Dextera, which monitors pH, temperature and humidity levels, allowing farmers to optimize fermentation situations.
COLCO is also presenting an application for the moment cocoa adapts to the hands. Using PC Vision, the application will objectively evaluate the quality based on color, length and variation between cocoa beans in a given sample. This innovation will even create an informative game box between farmers and traders, while laying the groundwork for complete traceability and origin.
Initially funded through a grant from the Newton Fund of the United Kingdom for 1 million pounds ($1. 3 million) in 2018, COLCO recently lasted for one year to compensate for delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget seems modest compared to the project’s ambition. , however, Catapult’s innovation co-production strategy that festival has allowed it to build evidence of concept that can revolutionize the way cocoa is grown, processed and advertised in Colombia.
“Sustainability happens in systems, in isolation,” says Jarman.
Headline image: Cocoa fruit in Peru, to which is grown in neighboring Colombia Photo of Rhett A. Butler.
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