9,573
edits
Changes
→Chocolate
* in Madagascar chocolate dominate the flavours of red berries and citrus fruits
== Robert Text ==
Some of the worlds finest cocoa grows in the Sambirano region in the northwest of Madagascar. Between 4,000 and 5,000 tons of dry, good quality cocoa are produced yearly in this area. Almost 80% of the harvest come from independent farmers. ROBERT works closely together with about 120 peasant farmers, which supply the company with first quality cocoa. One of them is Issouf.
Issouf lives with his family in New Ananambao, a small village in the Sambirano valley, about 47km from Ambanja. As a boy he learned everything about cocoa from his father, who had a plantation behind the village just next to the Ambahatra river. A big flood in 2004 and 2005 destroyed about 600ha of cocoa farm land, including his father's plantation. Heavy rain caused erosion and washed sand from the mountains into the valley. The good, fertile soil was covered by sand and is since then unusable for farming.
In 2009 Issouf created a new plantation further away from the village. Beside already existing older cocoa trees he planted new trees in the shade of fruit trees next to coffee shrubs, banana trees and vanilla. On his plantation grow all three types of cocoa: criollo, forastero and trinitario.
cocoa tree nursery
tree planting - erosion