Draft Meeting Summary

Martin Gilmour
Mars

Opening Session

Opening Session
Monday

Cacao in the Philippines

Production trends from ICCO, consumption growing
Enthusiasm for cacao growing in the Philippines
Where Philippines cacao might go in the next 10 years

Tuesday

Lots of players risen to the 2010 1mt call

Latin America growing, Asia not (production)
Turn around Sulawesi decline, 3x productivity at scale
Attract the next generation farmer
Research, technology transfer, cocoa doctors,
successful professional farmers

Topic I
Integrated Pest Management

1. Cocoa pod borer: Current

recommended control measures and
farmers practices in the region
Workable solution drawn from: frequent
complete harvesting, sanitation, fertilizer,
sleeving, insecticides (nozzle), more tolerant
varieties
Full package needs to be used, not parts
Sleeving the gold standard ? But, labour,
environment
Need farmer adoption, not just training
Is VSD now the greater threat ?

2. CPB control methods results of

ongoing projects and potential new
research projects

Artificial diet progressing

Biology of trichomes, kairomones and
pheromones slowly being worked out
Green coffee extract shows promise
Promising new insecticides
Promising new clones
Need for harmonised protocol to measure losses
Need more data on effect on CPB infestation
through leaving husk

3. Management of VSD and

Phytophthora
Change in VSD symptoms and behaviour over time
(pathogen, host, environment?)
Cover seedlings, manage by pruning, tolerant planting
material
VSD geographical spread still a mystery
Get rid of Phytophtora infected pods
Insects are attracted to rotten pods and can spread BP
Manage by more resistant planting material, sanitation,
soil health, fungicides
Use low flow narrow cone angle nozzles
Biological sleeving, Trichoderma, bio-fungicides

4. News on Helopeltis control methods +

Gaps in IPM research and research needed
Vietnam different cropping systems cause
different Helopeltis infestation ?
Crop diversification could be way forward ?

Understand biology, ecology more to point

towards solutions
Is there a water stress link ?
Pheromone research could be worthwhile
(check work done already, NRI)

Topic I: Integrated Pest Management

Discussion - Research needs
CPB need harmonised protocol/methodology to measure
losses
Effect of insecticides on pollinators
Ideal types of spraying regimes for CPB control
Pod husk keep on farm but whats the effect on CPB,
Black Pod, get data (also financial impacts)
Trenching ?

What are best ways to manage soil OM, motivate farmers

What are qualitative measures for soil health
Cocoa yield
Microbes, diversity
worms

Topic I: Integrated Pest Management

Discussion
VSD
Effect of pruning regimes as a VSD control measure (+
fertilizer)
Try to develop a screen for tolerance/susceptibility
(breeding tool)

Black Pod
Convincing farmers - try out IPDM on mini-blocks, eg.
25 trees on an individual farm

Topic II
Quality Issues in Asia/Pacific Cocoa
Producing Countries

5. Quality and food safety issues

Ongoing work on GAP for flavour quality, pesticides,
Ochratoxin A, PAH, heavy metal uptake
ECA, Caobisco, FCC members set up WG on quality and
productivity
Projects funded to make a difference (Cd, CSSV, quality
manual)
What could be an Asian project ?
CocoaSafe project building capacity in Indonesia,
Malaysia, finishing up in PNG
New pesticides manual (ICCO website)
Essential for sustainable intensification

6. Cocoa quality issues in the region

and suggested solutions
High use of pesticides by farmers enough
information on application, safety ?
Some activity on checking fertiliser and
pesticide quality, counterfeiting
Cadmium detectable in some bean origins,
localities
Buying wet beans centralises quality control,
reduces poor quality issues
Smoke/PAH contamination still a concern

Topic II: Quality Issues in Asia/Pacific

Cocoa Producing Countries
Discussion

Countries should decide on target market

butter/powder, liquor, fine, certified, internal, etc.
Careful thought about getting into fine cocoa market
Explore all options eg. 50% liquor, 30%
butter/powder, 10% fine, 10% internal consumption
Be mindful of new and changing import regulations
Newer countries look at a Cocoa Board style system
model of how to control and support quality?
Market differentials already reward quality
Clearer quality messages for farmers who arent
necessarily cocoa/choc consumers

Topic III
Soil Management and Soil Nutrition

7. Cocoa nutrition and importance of

organic matter
Low or high intensity growing conditions, conservative or
dynamic agroforestry
2x weight of leaves as pods (more fruits, less tree)
Low level photosynthesis and transpiration engine
Fertilizer to meet specific nutrition needs
Aim for 100% productive trees
Organic matter crucial
Biological, physical and chemical functions
How to get adequate soil OM for optimal cacao productivity

Growing portfolio of trials, case studies of fertilizer effect

Philippines, Vietnam (biochar), Indonesia (Tarengge, goats), but
not PNG !

8. Fertilisers used for cocoa in the

region

61% of farmers dont get advice on fertilizer use

Fake fertilizers confirmed as junk
most recent fertilizer advice is from 1980s
Good genetics first, then fertilizer
Vietnam, 100% farmer fertilizer usage
Over use of leaf analysis is questionable
Role for official bodies (govt?) to monitor
fertilizer quality
Set up INFERTICAO (International Fertilizer for
Cacao working group), meet this PM !

9. Recommendations to farmers for

improved soil management and high
productivity

Need cocoa to be competitive with other crops

Viable in the long term
Offer a living wage
Attract professional farmers

More data needed on shade

Research needed on fertilizer application, also fertilizers of the future,
regional/farm specific
Develop fertilizer ready farms
Over 800kg already
GAP and correct tree density
And, and ? First task for INFERTICAO

Develop tools to show farmers soil condition

productivity
worms
Smell
Other ?

10. Farm management for improved

cocoa production
Improve farmer understanding of the market
Good examples of cocoa plus rubber, banana
Australia heading towards 58th world cocoa
producing country (no. 1 for trellis cocoa)
Inexpensive intensification example in Vietnam
Sustainable modernization
Fertigation
Canopy architecture
Mechanization

In the future, flowering/pollination, decision

support tools, individual tree management

Topic IV
Cocoa Breeding and Planting
Materials

11. Cocoa breeding and clonal

selections
CacaoNet, genetic resources - funding need and start of global ABS
consortium
PNG new nurseries, bud wood gardens in the provinces. Testing for
CPB resistance
Vietnam imported new clones, evaluate using 4 locations. Share with
WASI
India 5 varieties released, looking at water limited conditions. 5 state
multi location trials
Philippines 102 germplasm collection, crosses with UF18. New clones
like USM CH2
Indonesia Fine cocoa DR clones. Bulk cocoa, select for resistance to
VSD, CPB. Farmer selections MCC01, 02.
Malaysia fingerprinting germplasm collection. 53 clones available.
Look for markers for CPB resistance.

Discussion
Both CPB, VSD cant be grown outside host,
constraint for breeding, always dependent on
field observations
Enough being done on Helopeltis resistance?
How to evaluate shade effect on new clones?
Important on evaluate on farms
Use partial resistance rather than tolerance
How to rapidly adopt and propagate new clones ?

 Regional hybrid seed exchange

15 000 seeds exchanged

Ongoing
Field trials well advanced
Protocols for yield, VSD/CPB/PPR
44 clones selected so far

Evaluation marker technology South Pacific

DAF, USDA-ARS, SPC

Genetic diversity of Pacific cocoa, unique materials
Phenotyping, genetic sampling, SNP marker analysis
608 samples
Mislabelling, lots to sort out but lots of useful information

Final thoughts
Talented, reasonably resourced research group
Best networked of any region
None of the big issues are insurmountable, lots of effort on
improving, fine tuning current best practices
Improving cacao productivity in Asia Pac is doable
This meeting has:

Shared experiences, results, progress, problems

Agreed to work on common terminology, protocols
Set up a new global soil fertility/fertilizer group
Reinforced collaborations, maintained links

Use this regional meeting as a template for Latin America,

West Africa - Regional Cocoa Research Workshops in 2016,
2017, 2018, (absence of COPAL)

Thank you !