Australian cocoa versus the world

The question for the nascent FNQ cocoa industry is ‘are we competitive’?  In other words, is it economically viable to grow cocoa in Australia. Charley’s modelling suggests the following  are key.

 

Price	Unable to control, but premium on quality
Yield	Needs access to high yielding clones
Cocoa growing	Controllable but challenging

 

The key issues facing cocoa production globally: 

• Climate change with weather becoming more unpredictable
• Subsistence farmers on small holdings struggle to make a living
• Low yielding plantations as farmers can’t afford to replace older low yielding trees
• Lack of access to water
• Affordable fertilizer prices
• Pest control

 

AC analysis (with the help of Gemini and Claude) indicates that some countries are better placed to deal with these challenges. We developed a slate of indicators and then asked AI to rate countries against them. We then applied our own knowledge to check the results.

 

The criteria we set:   

• On-farm adaptation capability - can a farmer respond to changing conditions
• Technology adoption – are new technologies available
• Government policies – does the govt support the local cocoa industry
• The availability of high yielding cocoa cultivars and the ability to develop them furth
• Agricultural infrastructure / capability
•  Availability of investors

The results show that Australia rates highly.

Data on cocoa industry

The major sources of data are data series maintained by the UNs FAO  and ICCO.org

This table shows the declining yields from the major cocoa growers in West Africa.

The table below shows the relatively low yields achieved globally.  Thailand and Guatemala have higher yields.

FAO data on cocoa yields - Ref - OurWorldinData.org/agricultural-production and  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cocoa-bean-production