Big boost: Workers use machines to harvest and husk cocoa pods at a farm in Bahia. New machinery and widespread use of irrigation systems is helping Brazil’s cocoa production grow, which is a large shift for the typically labour-intensive crop. — Bloomberg
SAO PAULO: Valuable cocoa beans pour from the pipe of what looks like a small train making its way through tropical fruit trees in Brazil, leaving only husks on the ground.
The machine is bringing automation to the husking of ripe cocoa pods, a significant improvement over the traditional labour-intensive harvesting process of picking fruit from trees and manually cutting through the stalks with a blade.
It’s part of an effort by agricultural powerhouse Brazil to lead the way to a dramatic modernisation of cocoa production methods, helping to spur an industry revival in the country.
More broadly, the shift may bring much-needed assistance to global markets facing severe bean shortages from top growers in West Africa.
Cocoa prices have more than doubled this year to a record as extreme weather, disease and structural issues have hurt supplies from Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Cocoa futures in New York settled at US$9,312 per tonne on Friday, climbing roughly 3%.
Low pay has hampered farmers’ ability to invest in improvements, limiting how much cocoa their trees can yield.
That’s bringing more global attention to Brazil, which has plenty of agricultural know-how and farmers with financial resources to invest in new crops.
“The production model in Africa tends to run out of steam over time, and that creates possibilities for other regions,” said Laerte Moraes, a managing director for Cargill Inc’s South American food ingredients unit.
“Brazil has all the conditions to be a very efficient and effective cocoa producer.”
The giant trading company is among the groups working with new technology to grow cocoa in atypical areas in Brazil.
After a recent agreement with farmers from the savanna region of Cerrado, Cargill is now in talks with chocolate makers, looking to build partnerships with farmers for the next phase of cocoa investments.
Brazil produces less than 5% of global cocoa supplies and is currently a net importer of beans.
Once a prominent global supplier, the South American nation lost it all to a tree-killing disease known as witches’ broom that decimated crops in the 1980s.
Brazil, where the main television channel is updating a 1990s telenovela about cocoa farmers, is set for a revival.
The country’s cocoa commission, Ceplac, is seeking to roughly double output to more than 440,000 tons a year by 2030. While still far from top supplier Ivory Coast, that would turn Brazil into one of the top producing countries, likely surpassing Nigeria and Cameroon.
Brazil used production methods that confined cocoa to a few small, more humid areas under the shadows of taller native trees. Now, the new machines can operate in bright sunlight and on plains.
Combined with better irrigation and widespread use of fertiliser and pesticides, as well as the selection of tree seedlings that can resist exposure to sunlight, producers are betting they can make cocoa crops more productive and more resistant to disease and extreme weather.
Several farmers working with the new techniques say productivity can reach about 3,000 kg/ha, much higher than the national average of 491 kg/ha.
Widespread irrigation allows cocoa planting in dryer areas, similar to an expansion of soybeans and corn in the same regions that helped Brazil become a major exporter of those commodities.
“A lot of people who are new to the cocoa industry are starting to explore it,” said agronomist Silvino Kruschewsky Neto, who consults for several farms in the country.
“They have a well-formed business vision that dictates the crop has to be productive and adopt technology.” — Bloomberg
