Photo: biocharfund.orgCocoa is the main cash crop for farmers in the village of Malende, in the South-West Region of Cameroon. Most of these farmers are smallholders who produce only a few tons of the valuable beans a year. There are hardly any large plantations amongst them. The farmers rather prefer, or are limited to, a system that combines subsistence crops, tree crops and cash crops. These mixed cropping systems – which leave large trees standing – protect biodiversity and may generate organic products. The Biochar Fund, in cooperation with CocoaMasters, is now conducting an experiment in four of these farms, where agroforestry is highly integrated within the surrounding ecosystem. CocoaMasters is an organisation of small African cocoa farmers who aim to bring structural changes to their industry. The goal of the project is to study the effectiveness of biochar on the growth and resilience of cocoa-seedlings, within a context of crop competition. Additionally, it explores to know whether biochar may be the key to bridging the gap between hard economic needs and ecological sense.
If biochar can sequester carbon in the soil, help boost cocoa-yields and prevent the use of mineral fertilizers, then it may offer small farmers a firm way into the new markets of climate-friendly and organic cocoa products. It may also prevent deforestation, which is rampant in an area where the push towards the establishment of new monocultural plantations is unstoppable.
Investing in cocoa is a risky business for the small farmers, as the trees take three to five years before they start bearing the wanted fruit. The Biochar Fund, the CocoaMasters and the farmers will analyse whether char speeds up this process. Biochar Fund will also look at a series of other agronomic parameters, such as the health of the seedlings at different stages, their proneness to diseases and infestations, and of course the quality of the pods and fruits itself, once the trees mature and start bearing. Biomass, cocoa-pod and seed yields are other areas of focus.
The four farms have an average size of 0.5 hectares on which 100 seedlings are planted, amidst a diverse range of other plants. The seedlings have been grouped and received different combinations of soil inputs: some lines act as the control (no soil inputs), other lines receive mineral fertilizer only, then on some lines the equivalent of 10 tons of char per hectare was added; a next set receives the same but in combination with fertilizer, and lastly, some lines receive the equivalent of 20 tons of char per hectare, alone, or in combination with fertilizer. The seedlings are spaced at 2 by 2 meters.
The test farms are located at the virgin forest frontier. Their soils are oxisols, some of which are infertile but suitable for tree crops and root crops (such as cassava, yam and cocoyam). All of the farms have maintained a large number of tropical trees, which perform important ecological functions in this agroforestry micro-environment. Some of the trees have a high market value (iroko, mahogany), but the farmers prefer to keep them standing, as they understand that the value of the ecosystem services within their own farm is higher than the price they would receive for the hardwood on the market.
As this is a multi-year project, the participating farmers and the CocoaMasters are committed to cooperate with the Biochar Fund on a long term basis. They are motivated because biochar may help the smallholders enter the growing market of organic and climate-friendly cocoa. Perhaps the char also allows for earlier harvests, which is commercially interesting for the participants.
