Sulawesi farmers strategies regarding cocoa pod borer USDA/CIRAD survey. Memo N° 3 : from a cocoa pest to a 'wine icon' labour-saving innovation. How Sulawesi smallholders are starting to cope with the additional post harvest labour generated by infestation by the cocoa pod borer
After starting cocoa production and enjoying a spectacular 15-year boom from approximately 1984 to 1999, Sulawesi cocoa farmers were suddenly confronted by a small insect, the cocoa pod borer. Major producing areas have all been infested since 1999/2000.1. For established cocoa farmers, the golden age is past. They are now entering a typical recession phase with a decline in yields and bean quality along with increasing costs, especially due to pesticide spraying. Gross and net revenues are shrinking. Farmers are also suffering from the need for significantly more labour (mostly family) for the first post-harvest operations: pod breaking and bean splitting. The borer lays its eggs on the pod. Larvae enter the pod where they consume the pulp and placenta. Beans are 'trapped' by a kind of cement placenta (Photo 1). Having a cluster of beans stuck to the husk makes breaking the pod more difficult. Then, once the pod is broken, having a cluster of beans stuck firmly to each other makes splitting the bean much more time consuming. Although this need for additional labour is not the biggest hurdle producers have to face, it may come as a surprise that it has never been tackled (even not evaluated) by research or extension agents. Farmers have had to invent and test their own solutions, hence the questions raised and tentatively answered in this note. What is the impact of CPB on post harvest labour? What are farmers' perceptions of the problem? What are potential or real labour-saving innovations introduced by the farmers.
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| Format: | monograph biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
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CIRAD
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| Subjects: | H10 - Ravageurs des plantes, E14 - Économie et politique du développement, |
| Online Access: | http://agritrop.cirad.fr/539257/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/539257/1/document_539257.pdf |
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