4. Cacao plantations

The first Spanish plantations were in Mexico in 1568. In 1660 the French planted cacao trees in Martinique. In the middle of the 18th century plantations were set up in Ecuador, Brazil, and Trinidad. In 1822 Africa got it’s first plantations. The Dutch transported the tree to Java and Sumatra, from where it spread to Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Samoa, and Indonesia. (BAILLEUX ET AL., 1995).

Figure 4; Theobroma Cacao groing under banana trees

The most important things for cacao trees are a humid atmosphere and enough shadow. This is why the trees are often grown together with other trees. For this purpose, mango-, coconut-, palm-, or lemon trees are used. Another tree, Glircidia sepium, “madre del cacao” is also often used as a sun screen (BAILLEUX ET AL., 1995). In figure 4 you can see an example of a cacao tree growing under a banana tree (COSTARICA INTERNETPAGE).


- index
- chapter 3 : The Chocolate revolution -
- chapter 5 : From pod to bean; different varieties of cacao & consumption -