Whereas intercropping with oil palms and fruit trees can help diversify the
revenues from productive cocoa groves, timber trees may accumulate the capi-
tal needed for replanting during the life of a plantation. Imagine a couple of
Côte d’Ivoire migrants who started clearing forest and planting cocoa in 1968
when they were in their twenties. Between 1989 and 1993, at the height of the
cocoa crisis, suppose they sold a few iroko (Milicia excelsa) or frake (Te rminalia
superba) trees, or perhaps even a sipo (Entandrophragma utile). They could use
the timber money to replant their cocoa grove, which was facilitated by still
some large trees and enough trees of intermediate size to provide the necessary
shade. They could retain and tend these trees in the plantation as retirement
capital and as an inheritance for their sons and daughters to finance the next
replanting. Perhaps they even planted some tree seedlings that they had col-
lected in a nearby forest or received from the extension service. Their mainte-
nance in the cocoa farm, along with the cocoa crop, would be almost cost-free.
Ways to trigger such investments in sustainability through contracts and
institutional arrangements between farmers and forestry services or wood-
processing companies should be explored. They need to be backed up by
measures to protect remaining forests, signaling to the farmers that further
shifts to the forest frontier are not an option. Whether the diversification of
cocoa farms relies on timber, fruits, medicinal products, ecotourism, carbon
credits, or payments for conserving biodiversity in the buffer zone of a forest
park, what is most needed to make cocoa agroforests more sustainable is access
to reliable and diversified markets for their products and services.
Acknowledgments
Most of the data used in writing this chapter, especially from the Côte
d’Ivoire, were collected in a research project granted to Coopération Interna-
tionale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) by the
Fonds Industriel pour la Recherche Cacaoyère from sales of the cocoa bean
stock. The CIRAD enumerator team in the Côte d’Ivoire, especially Allagba
Konan and Abelle Kla, deserve special thanks for the quality of their field-
work. Comments by A. M. N. Izac, J. Gockowski, and A. Angelsen greatly
helped to improve the quality of this chapter.
References
Alger, K., and M. Caldas. 1992. The crisis of the cocoa economy and the future of Bahian
Atlantic Forest.Los Angeles: Latin American Studies Association Conference.
Alves, M. C. 1990. The role of cacao in the conservation of the Atlantic Forest of southern
Bahia, Brazil.Master’s thesis, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Amanor, K. S., and M. K. Diderutuah. 2001. Share contracts in the oil palm and citrus belt
of Ghana.Paris: HED/GRET.
- Chocolate Forests and Monocultures 131