“I no longer have to wait 4 years to get an income from cocoa cultivation”

"I first implemented the system with beans, corn, banana, and Canavalia, a plant used as green manure and cover crop. Now, I cultivate fruits like pineapple and mandarin, but also other crops like cassava, soursop, and timber, together with my cocoa plants", says Fernando.

The producer indicates that he currently has 135 fruit plants, 135 timber plants, and 600 cocoa plants in each plot of 0.7 hectares. He established this mix by using citrus, mango, guava and other species based on the recommendations by Chocolats Halba. In the field school that he attended together with other producers, he also learned about plant spacing of timber, fruit trees and cocoa.

Benancio Bonilla, a technician at Chocolats Halba: "In the dynamic agroforestry cocoa plots, they start by cultivating plants such as beans, corn, pigeon peas, cassava, pepper and ayote (pumpkin). That way, they produce grains for the producer family and incorporate biomass into the soil."