Tropical Zone Gardening: Tropical Herbs and Spice!, 1 by johnpeten

johnpeten wrote:
Hi Dave, Reading your expose on Cacao was very interesting. As I live in Mesoamerica within a stones throw of the great Maya cities of Tikal and El Mirador I should know all about Cacao. I am totally ignorant and have never seen a tree here, only in the West Indies.
The locals and my Maya gardener know nothing about Cacao. In theory I should be able to throw some seeds into my garden and in about 3 years start producing pods.
I discovered that, as in Hawaii, Hershey made expeditions here but the projects came to nothing. Why don't we grow Cocao here? The reason is economic. Although Chocolate is very expensive the price that a farmer receives for the finished bean is very low and a profit is not possible. It is more profitable to grow Corn and Beans.
We have a similar situation with Coffee. Many of the large private Coffee Fincas have gone out of business. Local co-operatives now produce coffee but only receive a few dollars for 100 lb bags of dried beans (about 10c a pound). The members still live in hovels and are barely existing.