Chocolate is everyone’s favorite. The demand for chocolate keeps increasing. To meet the demands strategic agriculture practices need to be followed. Sustainable agriculture practices are necessary to ensure a better environment.
Agroforests is a sustainable agriculture practice where the crops are grown below trees. Agroforests contribute to climate change mitigation. Agroforests are widely expected to buffer crops from climate change, improve soil fertility and regulate pests and pathogens. It is advised to practice agroforests all over but, it is not suitable for all the crops.
Agroforestry system is a good option for sustainable cocoa cultivation. Conventionally, cocoa was grown under the shade of other trees. Modern agriculture gradually started to introduce higher yielding monocultures into practice. Today, cultivating cocoa beneath the canopy of larger trees is being practiced for a sustainable agriculture.
In a 2 years study conducted by W. J. Blaser and team, cocoa plants were grown in agroforests in Ghana, West Africa. During the study, 8 attributes like cocoa production, temperature losses to disease, soil fertility were measured and compared with those grown in monoculture. The scientists worked with localities to measure and compare the effects of shade trees in cocoa fields.
The results of the study depicted that cocoa plants grown under 30% shade trees had a positive effect compared to plants grown in areas without shade. This amount of shade is optimum to keep pests and diseases away from the plants. More shade might reduce the yield. But from the study, the growth of cocoa plants under 30% shade tree is advantageous over other plantation systems.
The research even showed that cocoa crops could tolerate more shade than previously thought, without compromising the yield. There is still potential to optimize the choice of the right shade tree in agricultural systems. Blaser is investigating on best shade tree for cocoa plants.
Agroforestry helps in maintaining soil moisture and reduces the temperature. The cooling effect attracts a diverse species of animals and plants in the field. More ecology can make farming more sustainable. Definitely, agroforestry helps to attain sustainable goals and control climate change because nature provides the best agro-ecosystem. We need not destroy the natural way.