Approximately 20 – 40 percent of cacao beans are lost due to disease. USDA warns in a new article that this could one day lead to insufficient supply to meet the world’s demand.
We’re not sure we’d go that far, as we know from basic economic theory, as supply tightens, prices go up. When prices rise, farmers from other countries start to produce more, and so the cycle continues.
However, there’s no doubt this is not a good approach, as it results in significant price instability which is not good for farmers, who as we know, bear the brunt of risk in the supply chain.
The report from USDA cites Cacao Black Pod Rot as the primary concern because it is found everywhere that the plant is grown.
It is caused by a group of organisms called oomycetes, that operate similarly to funguses. When the pod is infected, it turns rotten in a matter of days, and cannot be sold.
Variants of this organism have been found, and researchers from the US Agricultural Research Service are particularly concerned about one from Hawaii which, while less aggressive in the way it spreads, is harder to kill at higher temperatures. That’s going to be a problem as climate change is already making that an issue.
The researchers are now actively studying the different ways Cacao pod cultivation is impacted by these problems, so that they can find ways to mitigate the issue.
For example, we know that cacao plants can also be affected by a variety of viruses – perhaps the worst being the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Disease that has ravaged Ghana and caused COCOBOD the regulator to previously destroy 43,000 trees and secure additional funding to deal with the problem.
However, the cacao mild mosaic virus (CaMMV) was believed to exist solely in Trinidad and Tobago. This virus affects the growth of the pod and can cause the trees to become unhealthy with reduced yield.
by infecting Theobroma cacao seedlings. (Wilber Quintanilla, D4881-1)
In 2019, however an ARD researcher, Alina Puig found the virus in Puerto Rico, and again in 2021 she identified its presence at a USDA-ARS quarantine greenhouse in Miami Florida.
We were able to do genetic analysis on the pathogen and figure out its survival characteristics, transmissibility and how it acts differently in certain locations… Because of this research we can now target specific ways to interrupt the pathogen’s transmission to other cacao plants.
Dr Alina Puig
As a result, Dr. Puig went on to develop a molecular test to detect the virus, which has resulted in tests prior to transport, which prevent infected plants spreading to other areas.
Any infected plants are isolated for further research, but the question remains whether seeds themselves can transmit the disease, and this is something Puig and other researchers are still working on.
The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in agricultural research results in $17 of economic impact.
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