Chocolate Is a Product of the Cacao Tree
Chocolate Is a Product of the Cacao Tree
This chapter looks at both the Theobroma cacao tree and its cultivation. It covers cacao botany: its unusual habit of cauliflory, where the flowers, and hence the pods, arise directly from the trunk and main branches of the tree; pollination of its flowers, which is linked with the ecology of the rain forest in which it grows; and dispersal of its seeds, which is almost unique in its dependency on vertebrate animals such as monkeys, bats, and squirrels. The chapter also deals with the cultivation of cacao, mostly by smallholder farmers on individual, family-managed farms, typically 0.5 –7 ha in size, in the lowland tropical regions of Latin America, West Africa, and Indonesia. Finally, the chapter examines the impact of the increasing demand for chocolate on the push towards the intensification of cocoa cultivation, threatening to shift production even further from the traditionally managed, sustainable cultivation systems of the past.
Keywords: Theobroma cacao, cacao tree, cacao botany, ecology, cocoa cultivation, sustainable cultivation
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