Data can be problematic around here, I know, because it creates a temptation to use that forbidden f-word. Still, data (and that forbidden word) are what I understand. And as research mounts, it turns out that there is increasing data to support our Permie principles. Mongabay ran a story on cacao farming in Indonesia, comparing hand-pollination with the more usual toxic-gick methods, and as it turns out, hand pollination, even with the increased labor cost, outperformed toxic gick in generating income.
Getting Hands-on with Pollination Can Boost Cocoa Yields
To summarize: usually, only 5-10% of cacao flowers are pollinated. By pollinating by hand, cacao farmers find that yields increase anywhere from 51% to 161%, which is enough to make the labor-intensive technique worthwhile. The Indonesian chocolate-growing region is already a fertile soil area, so it no real surprise that chemical fertilizers make little difference there. It makes me wonder why chemical fertilizers became prominent in the first place; but I suppose a likely explanation is that such products are presented to farmers as being necessary, and they might not look beyond "received wisdom."
Hopefully, this will spread to other cacao-growing regions of the world.
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