Investing in cocoa plantations, on a large scale, and with high-yielding varieties, is the new trend among cocoa multinationals, who have already set their sights on several thousand hectares in Latin America.
The latest announcement is that of Barry Callebaut, who has joined forces with an agricultural company in Bahia, Brazil, on a 5,000 hectare plantation, or about half the surface area of Paris. The multinational has already experimented with the cultivation of this new generation cocoa in what it calls “ a farm of the future », of just over six hundred hectares in the Cerecitas Valley, Ecuador. The Swiss chocolatier’s stated objective is to develop a culture at an industrial level, while making sustainability the norm.
This is precisely what is attracting industrialists who invest in Latin America today: the region offers millions of hectares of free land suitable for agriculture, according to an expert in the sector, land “ that tick all the boxes » to meet the sustainability requirements of the new European regulations due to come into force at the end of the year.
The West African model in question
It is therefore a blessing for multinationals faced with a drop in production in West Africa, and aging plantations whose yield has not changed for years. Not to mention the difficulty of tracing beans from a multitude of plots. “ Production levels have reached a plateau », assures our interlocutor, for whom the model of small West African plantations of a few hectares has reached its limits.
This context pushes more and more industrialists to also become “ planters ”, to guarantee their supply and perhaps also depend less on world prices.
Barry Callebaut’s project is not the first of its kind. For several years now, the Mars group, associated with the trader Ecom, has launched a pilot plantation of 4,000 hectares in Colombia: Andean Cacao Project intends to be the trigger for a “ global transformation of the sector “, far from practices “ obsolete » which prevail today can be read on the project website.
High-yielding cocoa plantations
The project is 80% based on the hybrid variety CCN-51, “ fantastic cocoa » according to one of its defenders, who offers a large bean rich in butter and “ quite sufficient » in terms of taste for chocolate bars. This cocoa especially has the merit of having a yield which can exceed two tonnes per hectare compared to 500 to 600 kg for West African varieties.
The list of manufacturers ready to invest in this more profitable and secure cocoa farming model could very quickly grow: according to our information, the American Mondelez and the Italian Ferrero are also looking to take shares in plantations. from Latin America.
