Why is cocoa grown in africa

It requires high rainfall and temperatures to grow, as well as rainforest trees to offer shade and protection from too much light and damage caused by wind. Because cocoa farms are sensitive to this type of climate, they can only flourish in a narrow band of countries between 20 degrees north and south of the equator.

We do so through Cocoa Life, which is active across all major cocoa origins from Africa to Asia to the Americas. We are committed to making a difference in these communities.

Farmers must protect trees from wind and sun, fertilize the soil, and watch for signs of disease or distress.

With proper care, most cocoa trees yield pods by the fourth or fifth year and can continue for another 30 years. A typical pod contains 30 to 40 beans and there are about 30 pods per tree; approximately dried beans are required to make one pound of cocoa. Most countries have two periods of peak production per year: A main harvest, and a smaller harvest. Cocoa farmers use long-handled steel tools to reach the pods and cut them without wounding the soft bark of the tree. Some entrepreneurs have tried to make chocolate in Ghana.

But most have hit problems. Ghana has no sizable dairy industry, forcing them to import milk. Electricity prices are high. So are temperatures, obliging them to spend heavily on refrigeration. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.

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B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. Ghana and Ivory Coast produce nearly two-thirds of the global supply of cocoa. By David Pilling. Food The official candy bar power rankings. Critics are skeptical of such big-company efforts.

More From the Los Angeles Times. Business Amenities go wild at luxe apartments: Music studios, rooftop dog parks, bed making by app. These two are followed by other cocoa producing countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil and Ecuador.

Cocoa production provides livelihoods for between 40 and 50 million farmers, rural workers and their families in the Global South. Growing cocoa is hard manual work and very labour intensive, as caring for and harvesting the beans requires close and continuous attention.

The cocoa tree flowers and bears fruit throughout the entire year. It produces large cocoa pods, which need to be cut from the trees by machetes or sticks.

Each cocoa pod contains around 20 to 30 seeds sitting in a sweet white pulp — these are the actual cocoa beans. As pods do not ripen at the same time, the trees need to be monitored continuously.