Silvio Ávila
43
A
sweet option
Among the newcrops
nowbeing grown in
WesternBahia, cocoa
production shows
a potential for huge
expansion over the
coming years
Bahia’s tradition in growing cocoa beans in the Country,
with the crop concentrated in the southern part of the State,
now occupying the leadership position in the Country, could
extend to the Western Region, where cultivations have al-
ready startedandagoodproductionpotential is spotted. The
first trial fields conducteda short timeagowith the rawmate-
rial of the chocolate in the region, still without any technical
assistance, yielded reasonable results, but a specialized as-
sessment conducted in 2016 detected conditions for relevant
productivity rates, which could lead to the establishment of a
new cocoa producing hub.
This option comes at a time when production in the Coun-
try is on the decline and demand on the
rise, which leads to a pursuit of new areas
for growing this crop. The Executive Com-
missionof the Plan for Cocoa Farming (Ce-
plac), linked to the Ministry of Agriculture,
LivestockandFoodSupply (Mapa), hasen-
couraged the expansion of producing re-
gions and, in 2016, sent a technical team
to Western Bahia to check the produc-
tion conditions, based on the initial expe-
rience. It took place in three irrigated fields (two in Barreiras
Norte and one in Riacho Grande), by farmers coming from the
traditional producing region of Ilhéus, in SouthBahia.
In the evaluations, the technicians observed good pro-
ductive potential, which could soon achieve one thousand
hectares devoted to the crop, with productivity rates of
250 arrobas per hectare, representing five times the perfor-
mance now achieved in South Bahia. One of the prevailing
aspects that stood out is that Western Bahia, besides appro-
priate climate and soil conditions, offers topography that fa-
vors the mechanization of the production operations (plant-
ing, trimming, fertilization and cocoa breaking, which is still
performed manually in traditional regions), thus making the
productive process easier, whilst potentiating it.
The region, acknowledgedas suitable for avarietyof crops,
is equally appropriate for the cultivation of cocoa, observes
Cisino Lopes, director at the Bahia Association of Farmers and
Irrigators (Aiba), who, in 2017, attended the Ilhéus workshop
on the mechanization of cocoa farming, and keeps an eye on
the work that started in the Western portion of the State. He
has already witnessed the “excellent results derived from the
use of more productive clones, which is the case of the variet-
iesCepec2002andPS1319”.Inhisview,thiscouldbeareward-
ing initiative for the region, with the purpose to strengthen its
economy, aswell as boost the State’s production capacity.
Technical area
of the sector
anticipateshigh
productivity rates
across theregion
