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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Strangled Cacao: Debunking Coconut-Cacao Inter-cropping?



The account and personal experience below  of Mr. Lazaro was pointed out to me by Mr. Wiley of DCF when I visited their farm. I mentioned to them that I saw an article about inter-cropping cacao and coconut so I shared it on this blog through these posts:


http://pinoychocophile.blogspot.com/2014/01/intercropping-coconut-and-cacao.html#.Uz7CUKg-rpo

An excerpt from the book:
One big mistake Lazaro distinctly remembers is a decision he made while still with the Benguet Corporation, when he strangled... cacao. "I wanted to move into the agricultural filed in a non-traditional way, so we identified a location that appeared ideal for citrus development. We spent a lot of money to develop the farm, but it did not produce the kinds of fruits we wanted. We planted cacao under coconut trees because cacao needs shade, and we thought there was a symbiosis between the two - we could fertilize the cacao and the coconut at the same time. But we ended up with two cropfields that lost a lot of money because, as we fertilized cacao. which is the higher value crop, the roots of the coconut went after the fertilizer, and you know the roots of the coconut are so strong so they eventually strangled the cacao. We produced coconuts that were so big, but lost the higher value crop, the cacao, was lost."
How to deal with such a blunder? Lazaro is quick to answer:"You just accept it and write it of."

Extraordinary Stories for Aspiring Leaders
Editors, Victor L. Madaraog and Nikki Katherine M. Dy-Liacco
page 121, Anvil, 2008



The book features fifty-one extraordinary men and women business leaders whose life challenges, experiences and achievements have given them insights into the kind of leadership that inspires, ignites and propels positive change in our society. Written for aspiring leaders, this book features extraordinary accounts that can inspire and instill hope for those who are searching for present-day role models.  http://www.anvilpublishing.com/shop/extraordinary-bookpaper/


I will verify with PCA if they have farms to demonstrate and validate what they've proposed is really working and will contradict the account above. Perhaps there are farms that would prove PCA's suggestion is really effective based on their own experience and I would like to visit and see the place for myself, because I am even proposing such scheme to a group of farmers in Quezon. Now I have to refrain from pursuing  the suggestion until I have personally verified it myself.

Hope readers of this blog could point me if there are farms that effectively, efficiently, and productively inter-crop of cacao and coconut. Would appreciate any lead. Salamat po.

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