First cacao harvest from the agroforestry plots

Families who planted cacao among the native trees in 2022 have sold their first real harvest this season. It took three years from planting to a crop worth taking to market, which is about what we told them to expect, and the waiting was its own test of faith.

On the plots nearest the villages we plant cacao and fruit trees in among the native canopy rather than in cleared rows. Cacao naturally grows under shade, so it sits comfortably beneath the taller trees, and the result is forest that earns a living while it grows back.

That is the whole idea. The people protecting these plots are not being asked to guard them out of goodwill while earning nothing from them. The forest pays them, which is a far stronger reason to keep it standing than any rule we could impose.

The first proper harvest sold to a cooperative buyer at a fair price, negotiated by the Associação Raízes rather than by us, because a community that can strike its own deal is in a stronger position than one that depends on the charity to sell its crop.

We will be honest that not every plot has done equally well. Some of the cacao went in on ground that was a little too dry or too shaded, and those trees are yielding less. We are learning, plot by plot, where in the canopy cacao actually thrives.

But a family that earns from a standing forest has a reason of its own to keep it standing, year after year, long after we have moved on. That is more durable than any fence, and it is the part of this work most likely to outlast us.