The Cocoa from Ecuador is recognized as some of the best in the world for its excellent, fruity and floral aroma. The native variety called “Nacional” is endemic to Ecuador and for many years has been cultivated by indigenous people; more recently the Nacional variety has been cultivated by settlers in a shade system with other native trees.

More than two million metric tons of cocoa are produced every year in the humid tropics, largely for consumption in the developed world. Cocoa is the main revenue for millions of farmers. An estimated 70% of the world’s cocoa is grown by small farmers, working less than two hectares of land. Cocoa, like coffee, can be grown under the shade of rainforest trees, providing great wildlife habitat without diminishing the farmer’s ability to make a living. Conservación y Desarrollo has helped small farmers improve the production, quality and marketing of their cocoa while making the farms better wildlife habitat and safer for their families.

Traditional forested cocoa production is one of the few agrarian activities that is both ecologically and economically viable, providing a living income, maintaining family traditions, and enriching wildlife habitat. In the early 1900s, Ecuador was one of the world’s leaders in growing and processing high quality cocoa for world markets. Ecuador was also famous for its distinctively aromatic cocoa pods. However, various diseases arrived in the 1920s and, later, a series of government disincentives for high-quality cocoa processing resulted in declines in production and quality. The native cocoa produced under the species-rich rainforest canopy is rapidly being replaced by low-quality hybrid version that is grown in deforested, open fields. Farmers receive a higher yield this way, but the cocoa is often low quality, requires agrochemical inputs, and these farms offer no habitat for wildlife.

In January of 1997, Conservación y Desarrollo began working with 1,500 cocoa farmers in five communities south of Guayaquil, Ecuador, helping cocoa farmers reclaim their heritage. Biologists taught basic ecology and conservation to the farmers and their families, driving home the message that farm production and environmental protection are not opposing goals.

Cooperatives
As smallholders are often unorganized and at the mercy of suppliers and buyers, C&D helped the communities organize cocoa cooperatives centered on shared processing and sales facilities. The cooperatives negotiate better prices for supplies and sales. Additionally, C&D helped the co-ops sell more directly to the market, eliminating some of the intermediaries and greatly increasing the amount they earn for their crop.

Production
Inadequate cultivation practices result in low productivity and disease, and many farmers cannot earn enough to feed their families. In response, C&D recruited a self-taught local farmer and cocoa management expert who showed the farmers simple, sustainable techniques to greatly increase production without resorting to expensive agrochemicals. In most cases, quality has markedly improved, and the farmers are getting higher, even premium prices.

Solar Dryers
In 1997 there were two common ways of drying cocoa in Ecuador. One was using the sun by drying the beans on concrete surfaces specifically built for this activity, or on the sides of roads. The other way was using inefficient, diesel powered “dryers” that polluted the beans with diesel fumes and sulfur.

CyD quickly realized that one of the main challenges of growing cocoa in the humid tropics is finding an inexpensive system to dry their beans. Solar dryer is an invention that will change the life of the thousands of small cocoa farmers. Furthermore, they can be used in the off-season to dry other products, like corn, coffee and rice.