The chocolate tree: growing cacao in the forest can provide a living to small farmers and a habitat to diverse creatures

Natural History, July-August, 2003 by Robert A. Rice, Russell Greenberg

Thus the fundamental issue of what the grower gets paid remains unsolved. Activists in the "fair trade" movement have convinced some of the major players in the chocolate industry that price has to cover the true costs of production by the small farmer and provide a living wage to the farm family. Several industry giants are now buying cacao at a higher-than-market price from associations of small growers; part of the money then goes toward community development and the implementation of sustainable production techniques. And several smaller but quite upscale companies are working directly with producers to showcase their cacao beans in certified organic chocolate products.

So the next time you order chocolate mousse, topped by a few shavings of bitter chocolate and a dab of whipped cream, think of it the way you might think of homemade strawberry jam, or hand-rolled sushi, or a top-flight French wine--something that's worth paying extra for. Chocolate, too, at least at the grower's end of the production chain, remains a cottage industry: the work of many hands, by people who have to pay their own bills. And then, because you truly enjoy it, savor their work.

ROBERT A. RICE ("The Chocolate Tree," page 36) (far left) works predominantly on issues of tropical agriculture and land management. A geographer and policy researcher at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington, D.C., Rice helped organize the Smithsonian's first workshop on sustainable cacao production. His coauthor, the ornithologist RUSSELL GREENBERG, investigates the ecology of the migrant birds that winter in Latin America's human-dominated landscapes, such as coffee farms, cacao farms, and cattle pastures. Associated with the Smithsonian Institution for nearly thirty years, and director of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center since 1992, Greenberg helped launch conservation initiatives such as the Smithsonian's bird-friendly coffee program.