Climate change wipes out 30,000 tons of cocoa production in Oaxaca

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Cambio climático desaparece producción de 30 mil toneladas de cacao en Oaxaca

The rainy season has worsened the crisis affecting cacao in the Papaloapan Basin, to the point that there is no product in the region or in the state, said Monica Rangel Audelo, representative of the product system in Oaxaca.

She indicated that cacao is a plant sensitive to excess humidity and water, but also to extreme heat, so the intense temperature at the beginning and middle of the year was added to the rains due to tropical depressions that have prevented it from flowering and bearing fruit and from being able to supply demand.

“The harvest has a period of time, but the main date of the first harvest is in September and October to have production in November, but excessive water has prevented that process. We will have to wait for the next cycle between January and March, because this year there was no production in Tuxtepec due to climate change,” Rangel Audelo specified.

He commented that the gestation of trees and fruits takes months and both fell and dried, due to this fact the price is sky-high, since it adds to the fact that they drag the losses of the drought.

“The cocoa in Tuxtepec is being sold at 270 pesos per kilo and at 300 pesos in the city of Oaxaca, but it is useless if there is no necessary production, these sky-high prices are not leaving profits to the local producers, since the cocoa consumed in Oaxaca comes from other states,” he emphasized.

He said that the producers attached to the product-system have sold to buyers directly, but these are isolated efforts, since they have been forgotten for years by the state government that has refused to make a collection center in the region, which can promote and take care of the production, so the local farmers take the little product they have left to other areas of the country.

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The problem of extreme climates, from intense heat to torrential rains, he said, is changing the production and consumption of cocoa in Mexico. Given this, in the near future, at least Oaxaca will not have pure cocoa, only mixed chocolate without high levels of theobromine, which is the main alkaloid substance that even has the healing power to counteract memory problems.

According to data from the Cocoa Product System, around 30 thousand tons are produced annually in Oaxaca and the main production areas are located in the Papaloapan Basin, in the municipalities of Valle Nacional, Tuxtepec, Soyaltepec, Santiago Jocotepec and Acatlán.

Source: oaxaca.eluniversal