Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

COST OF CACAO PRODUCTION 105 yield. The first is the simpler and more populär method. The actual value of the tree taken as the basis depends on the age and condition of the trees, the general character of the property, the number and state of the buildings, the productiveness of the soil, the degree of cultivation, as well as the ease of access to the plantation and its distance from the point of embarkation. In pre-war days in the West Indies it was usual to take the average value of a fully-bearing tree as one dollar.1 This would mean that an estate planted 12 ft. by 12 ft., when the whole of the 300 trees were in füll bearing, would be worth (62 10s. an acre. Labour Required. The author remarked in an earlier chapter that, since 500,000,000 cacao trees are needed to produce the cacao crop of the world, a vast horde of people must be employed in its cultivation. The actual number is less than one might at first infer. Taking the country which. is the third greatest producer in the world, Ecuador, where the amount of labour expended on cultivation is small, it is reckoned that, on a large estate there is only one labourer to every 7,000 trees, or one labourer to every 8,000 Ibs. of cacao produced per annum. Using the number of trees as the basis of calculation, we find there are at least 70,000 labourers engaged in producing the world’s cacao. This is a conservative estimate because it assumes that all plantations are managed, as in Ecuador, by Europeans and with a minimum of labour. In West Africa, which produces a third of the world’s cacao supply, the natives own and manage the plantations, and these, in spite of the low standard of cultivation, maintain a greater number of people to the 100,000 trees than in Ecuador. Mr. E. J. Organ estimates that there are at least 25,000 growers on the Gold Coast. 1 The average value in 1922 was more nearly 90 cents.