Abstract:

The Cacao growers of Nicaragua like many small agricultural producers need to learn some marketing and use of modern technology to understand the customer and the market. The authors are part of a team working with Co-creamos in Nicaragua to help energize the economy of artisans, small producers, and others. This paper focuses on the Cacao growers who are organized into approximately sixty cooperatives. In October 2023 the authors visited four Cacao cooperatives and learned a lot about the need to understand their markets and the changing global landscape for cacao. The men and women who form these cooperatives rightfully believe this part of the historic indigenous cultures of the Americas. Cacao does appear to come from the upper Amazon.

This paper is about developing a plan to help the Cacao cooperatives recognize their place in the world marketplace and perhaps influence their long-term thinking on the future of cacao. There are a number of Macro Environmental factors that are at work in the Cacao industry. First, with climate change hitting Nicaragua and changing the seasonal heat patterns as well as the seasonal rains, it has made it harder to grow high quality coffee at lower altitudes. The immediate substitute appears to be Cacao. The leaders of some cooperatives expect to increase their production by as much as 10% in cacao in the next five years. Every cooperative we spoke to was selling their production to the same privately held European Chocolatier. Second Cacao markets are now dominated by the large amounts of cacao produced in Africa, notably in places like the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Approximately 70% of global production is found in Africa, the remainder is split between Asia and Latin America. Third, the Europeans love chocolate made from cacao and eat pounds of the stuff every year. Some countries average almost 20 pounds per person. These countries have aging populations and are almost at their peak. Fourth the home market in Nicaragua does not consume much cacao or chocolate except in the traditional drink of Cacao mixed with maize or corn. Finally, some potential huge markets like China do not consume much Chocolate. When they do they want it to be in the European style.

On a more micro level they the cooperatives have young people who want to use more Technology in the growing and processing of cacao. These young people want to understand more of the world markets. Other young people want to immigrate in Nicaragua to cities and leave the small pueblos and farming communities. The cooperatives have some very small farmers that need to have diverse income producing crops to exist. The cooperatives are struggling with some of the members carrying the weight of the work of the cooperative while others only want the benefits of the ability to sell their crop. In essence they have five markets, the world market for Cacao, keeping their own youth, helping their weaker members, keeping all members involved, and trying to raise the consumption of Chocolate in their home economy. They have a lot to do with little background to accomplish all this.

This paper introduces the research on the cacao through visits to the cooperatives, research and finally introduces the types of education we propose for the leaders and the youth of the cooperatives in various regions of Nicaragua. It could be a model for introducing more market education into the world of farmers and cooperatives.

Keywords:

Cacao, climate change, technology, cooperatives, immigration.