The Witch's Curse

Latin Trade, Sept, 2000 by Raymond Colitt

A deadly fungus ravages Brazil's cacao crop, once the world's largest.

ON A REMOTE HACIENDA NEAR THIS TOWN IN SOUTHERN Bahia state, the piercing noise of a chain saw echoes over the rolling hills, followed by the thunderous thump of a colossal tree crashing to the ground. After a brief silence, the whining of the chain saw resumes. From a bird's eye view, the dark green carpet formed by the canopy of tall tropical forest is marked by large clearings, some peppered with rotting tree stumps, others already converted into pasture and farm land.

These are the scars of a deadly disease that has ravaged what was once the worlds largest cacao-growing region. As the voracious fungus eats its way into the cacao plants, causing leaves to shrivel and the fruit to putrefy from within, many cash-strapped growers are forced to chop down and sell the tall-standing trees that grant them the necessary shade to grow the plants.

The vassoura da bruxa, or witch's broom disease--so named because the fungus leaves defoliated branches resembling a broom--has caused one of the largest agricultural crises in Brazilian history. Cacao production has plummeted from 410,000 tons per year in the mid-1980s to only 100,000 tons per year, throwing the local economy into a tailspin and more than 25,000 growers into despair.

Many farmers have been forced to abandon their farms and flee for the cities. Some lost everything they had and a few even committed suicide. Others have cleared their land to raise cat- tle or grow coffee.

"The impact has been devastating," says Wallace Setenta, president of the National Association of Cocoa Producers. Already, 150,000 hectares of former cacao plantations have been irreversibly destroyed, he says. "We have a 250-year tradition of growing cacao and the world's best infrastructure to do so. If Bahia can't recover cacao production, we will lose it all and the world will lose another 250,000 hectares of forest."

Ten years after the witch's broom made its first appearance, it has swept away much of the region's livelihood. "This place used to be buzzing with activity. We would bring the fruit by donkey to dry, as many as 8,000 arrobas [15 kilograms] per season," reminisces Fernando Ferreira, standing before a small pile of shriveled cacao beans. "Now, we can be happy to get 1,000 arrobas."

Ferreira admits he and his neighbors have cleared forest for cattle farming, a more lucrative business. He recognizes the ecological impact, but insists they have little alternative. "It's easy for others to oppose chopping down trees, but how are we supposed to feed our children?" he asks.

Fazendas that once had 20 to 25 farmhands now employ only one or two. "We used to produce good fruit, but the witch's broom did away with it all. Today, there is little output," says Antonio Perreira de Souza, who has retired after working on cacao farms for 50 years.

On the outskirts of Ilheus, a provincial town on Bahia's Atlantic coast, the abandoned structures of large cocoa-processing plants are only the most visible testimony to the economic downfall of the once thriving town.

The downtown Cocoa Museum says it is closed for repairs, but locals say it lacks funds. On the plaza in front of the cathedral, an emblem of yesteryear's cocoa wealth, a group of taxi drivers plays cards while vendors at a souvenir market rest in the shade of a palm tree swaying in the humid ocean breeze. "Business has been slow lately," says Americo Concesao de Jesus, who used to work at the port loading freighters with cocoa and now sells agua de coca to passersby "I worked harder then but also earned more."

Today, the trucks queuing at Ilheus port are waiting to unload soybeans from western Bahia. The region no longer exports raw cacao beans. In fact, it began importing them three years ago to feed the two remaining processing plants, which are run by Cargill and ADM, the multinational commodity giants. When the first shipment of imported cocoa arrived, local farmers took to the streets in protest, recalls Marcelo Bittencourt, who runs a cacao brokerage and warehouse.

Like many other cacao farmers, he has had to look for additional sources of income and now runs a restaurant as well. "We learned from the crisis to diversify," says Bittencourt, whose father began growing cacao in the 1920s.

Other farmers are trying their luck with tourism. On the road between Ilheus and Itabuna, where famed Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado described the plight of 1930s farm workers in his book Cacau, numerous bed-and-breakfast signs hang outside cacao fazendas. Jose Adrian Flores Bustamante has converted his home into one of the most successful guesthouses in Ilheus, with an average occupancy rate of 80%. Still, says the agricultural engineer, "I prefer working in the fields." He has not given up on cacao entirely and is one of several farmers grafting plants with more fungus-resistant varieties.

After years of intensive research, Ceplac, a government agricultural research institute, has developed new cacao varieties in trial plantations that are showing the first signs of being more resistant to the disease. Yet growers have criticized Ceplac for not multiplying the stock of seedlings--which have been available since 1997--more quickly for massive use.