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Comparison of cocoa tree ages and cocoa plantation ages (cocoa tree ages measured in 402 cocoa agroforests, cocoa plantation ages obtained from the farmers of those plots, central Cameroon)
Source publication
The sustainability of cocoa growing systems in the humid tropics is debatable. Socio-economic and technical data were obtained
from 1,171 cocoa farmers and 1,638 cocoa plantations to assess the long-term dynamics of cocoa agroforests in central Cameroon
since the beginning of the twentieth century. On-site, we estimated the age of the cocoa trees a...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... cocoa tree replacement was reflected by the coexistence of cocoa trees of different ages in the (Fig. 7). At a regional level, whilst the average age of the cocoa plantations was 54 years, the average age of the cocoa trees was 40 years-this age gap increased with increasing age of the cocoa ...
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Citations
... Key benefits of coconut-based agroforestry systems are increased total yields, diversified income, increased resource use efficiency, improved soil health, climate resilience, reduced external inputs, and biodiversity conservation (Maheshwarappa 2008). Coconut-based agroforestry systems enhance livelihoods through food security, renewable energy to replace fossil fuel use, and diverse income options supporting gender equity and youth engagement (Jagoret et al. 2011), while providing ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, watershed protection, and landscape restoration (Jose 2009;Raveendra et al. 2017). By integrating multiple species and functions in a sustainable manner, coconut-based agroforestry systems act as a promising naturebased solution to increase productivity and ecological and social well-being. ...
Coconut (Cocos nucifera) cultivation forms the cornerstone of numerous small-scale integrated agricultural systems in tropical regions. Intercropping coconuts with other crops, trees, livestock, and spices diversifies the income of farmers and improves year-round food availability. Combining multiple plant and animal species creates positive interactions that increase overall productivity and stability. This chapter shows coconut agroforestry systems have higher yields, more stable income, and lower risks compared to coconut monocultures. Agroforestry systems are also more resilient to climate change. Additionally, they provide further ecosystem services and environmental benefits compared to monocultures. Coconut agroforestry reduces soil erosion, enhances soil health, conserves biodiversity, and supports key ecological functions like pollination. However, fully realizing the potential of coconut agroforestry under climate change requires extensive farmer knowledge- sharing networks. These networks can accelerate peer learning and the adoption of appropriate technologies. Mainstreaming context-specific coconut agroforestry supported by participatory development pathways and inclusive policy promises triple-win outcomes benefiting rural livelihoods, ecosystem health, and global mitigation priorities. This chapter provides an extensive literature review across climate adaptation, productivity enhancement, ecosystem services, and environmental sustainability within integrated coconut farming systems.
... According to the National Cocoa and Cofee Ofce of Cameroon, cocoa represents 2% of the national gross domestic product (GDP), 6% of primary GDP, 30% of GDP in the subsector of agricultural products intended for processing, and 40% of primary sector exports [3]. ...
... Biomass data for the adjustments were collected by destructive sampling of 50 trees of Teobroma cacao over a range of diameters from 5 to 27 cm. In the opinion of cocoa farmers, systematic sampling was carried out on cocoa trees and made it possible to select the diferent architectural types as defned by Jagoret et al. [3] from an age range of 0 to 70 years. Before each tree was felled, dendrometric parameters were measured. ...
... Adding crown diameter and height to the models did very little to improve the quality of adjustment Tis weak link between the diameter of the crown and the biomass on the one hand and the height and the biomass on the other hand could be explained by the fact that cocoa trees are called upon to compete for light in the undergrowth of agrosystems. Forests, moreover, vegetative multiplication by budding leading to the complex from type I to type V as defned by Jagoret et al. [3], associated with random pruning would bias the allometry (ABG-CD/H). Te residual standard errors (RSEs) for aboveground, belowground, and total biomass range from 0.185 to 0.211, 0.267 to 0.311, and 0.162 to 0.301, respectively; similarly, the relative root means square error (RRMSE) varies from 0.180 to 0.192, 0.272 to 0.281, and 0.161 to 4.42, respectively, for aboveground, belowground, and total biomass. ...
Te accuracy of biomass estimates through mathematical expressions remains essential for the sustainability of the REDD + process. Te objective of this research was to develop allometric models by site species to evaluate the biomass of Teobroma cacao in agroforestry systems in the Central Region of Cameroon. Biomass data were obtained by the destructive method on a sample of 50 trees (5 cm ≤ D ≤ 27 cm). Allometric models were developed using aboveground (AGB), belowground (BGB), and total biomass (TB) as dependent variables and tree dendrometric parameters as independent variables. Nine linear models were adjusted based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC), residual standard error (RSE), coefcient of determination (R 2), and various statistical tests including the normality test, heterogeneity, and autocorrelation for the analysis of residuals. Te diferent results show that only the diameter appears to be a good predictor of biomass with an R 2 greater than 0.94, 0.85, and 0.95, respectively, for aboveground biomass (M1: ln B = −1.613 + 1.83 × ln (D)), belowground biomass (M1: ln B = −2.611 + 1.65 × ln (D)), and total biomass (M1: ln B = −1.297 + 1.79 × ln (D)). Incorporating crown diameter and height into the models slightly improved the quality of adjusted. Comparison of the models in this study with pantropical equations previously used to estimate Teobroma cacao biomass shows that the models in this study provide a better estimate. Te allometric equations developed in this work to estimate the AGB, BGB, and TB of Teobroma cacao can be used under the same environmental conditions to accurately predict the biomass accumulated in agroforestry systems by this species and thus allow the implementation of activities aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD +) for the beneft of local communities through the carbon market.
... Some farmers quoted the "success" of Bundibugyo's cacao farming industry, which appears to be decisive in the current boom of cocoa farming in the other districts that were visited during this survey. Also, the most quoted topic for the question on interest for cacao was "legacy for children", which suggests an overall long-term approach inherent in development of cocoa component in farms (Jagoret et al., 2011). ...
... We performed backwards model selection using likelihood ratio tests on fully nested models (LRTs, cut-off probability P > 0.1) and then used minimal adequate models to estimate coefficients. Model evaluation was conducted using the package DHARMa (Hartig and Hartig, 2017). All GLMMs were run using the package glmmTMB (Brooks et al., 2017) in R v4.0.3 software (R Core Team, 2020). ...
... Niether et al. (2020) in a meta-analysis showed that even though full-sun plantations have higher cacao yields than agroforestry systems, when these systems are managed properly and all the systems' yields are considered (e.g., by-crops from shade trees), they can be economically as viable as full-sun plantations. In addition, agroforestry cacao systems are more ecologically stable and have longer productive lifetime (Niether et al., 2020), which can help farmers to have stable revenues across long periods (Jagoret et al., 2011). This is especially important when we consider that cacao agroforestry systems have greater resilience to climate change and the potential to mitigate it due to a higher carbon sequestration Niether et al., 2020), something that could help address the problems that African farmers will face with the future climate change scenarios (Müller et al., 2011). ...
Sub-Saharan Africa produces most of the Earth’s cacao. Although pests cause losses of hundreds of millions annually, the role of cacao pest suppressors remains unknown. We used an exclusion experiment to prevent access of bats and birds to cacao trees and quantified how their absence affected arthropod communities, herbivory, and crop yield. Overall, Mealybugs and other hemipteran pests were more abundant in exclosures. Under heavy shade (90%), cacao trees with vertebrate exclosures had 3.9 times fewer flowers and 3.2 times fewer large pods than control trees, corresponding to losses on average of $478 ha-1y-1. Under low shade cover (10%) however, the opposite pattern was evident: exclosures trees had 5.2 times more flowers and 3.7 times more large pods than control trees, corresponding to savings on average of $796 ha-1y-1. Our study demonstrates that the enormous potential of African bats and birds as pest suppressors is dependent on shade tree management.
... 8 In addition, most cacao farms are old and need to be renewed with elite cacao genotypes able to face the new climatic conditions. The implantation of this agriculture in drier regions in Cameroon, especially in agroforestry systems set up in forest-savannah transition zones, 9 has generated interest in the selection of genotypes that are more tolerant to severe climates and also in the molecular events involved in drought tolerance. ...
Introduction
The cacao tree ( Theobroma cacao ), a perennial crop that serves as a source of cacao beans, can suffer from drastic climate changes such as irregular rainfall and shorter rainy seasons. The search for hybrids which are capable of producing specific metabolites favoring adaptation in new climatic conditions is a challenge in cacao farming.
Objectives
We aimed to (1) analyze the metabolic changes in calli of three cacao genotypes during water deficit induced by incubation with polyethylene glycol and (2) assess their response to water deficit stress with regard to somatic embryo differentiation.
Methods
Metabolic profiling was carried out using ¹ H‐NMR spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis was applied to crude extracts of calli grown in non‐stress or water deficit stress conditions.
Results
Water deficit stress influences the capacity of calli to produce embryos. The SCA12 genotype exhibited the best conversion capacity under severe conditions and was considered as tolerant to drought, followed by the SCA6 genotype (mid‐tolerant) and the MA12 genotype (sensitive). Fifty‐four metabolites were identified in the three cacao genotypes and discriminant metabolites were identified. Metabolites involved in water stress tolerance such as fructose, trans ‐aconitic acid, leucine, and hydroxybenzene derivatives were observed in SCA12, the tolerant genotype.
Conclusion
These results demonstrate the utility of ¹ H‐NMR metabolomics as an essential tool for the analysis of the drought tolerance characteristics of T. cacao .
... Several studies have shown the effectiveness of these systems not only in food security, but also their carbon stock potential in the fight against climate change (Somarriba et al., 2013;Zapfack et al., 2013;Mapongmetsem et al., 2016;Temgoua et al., 2018Temgoua et al., , 2019Etchike et al., 2017Etchike et al., , 2020. Agroforestry systems therefore present themselves as both an alternative for the conservation of phytodiversity, local development and the fight against poverty through the provision of various products and other socio-economic needs of populations (Eboutou, 2009;Jagoret et al., 2011Jagoret et al., , 2012Manfo et al., 2015;Abada Mbolo et al., 2016). Cocoa farming is a great source of income for central farmers, which allows them to introduce or retain many useful woody species (Saj et al., 2013;Temgoua et al., 2018). ...
... In conclusion, the differences in arthropod community composition driven by shade management may lead to rapidly declining yields in intensive cocoa farms (Blaser et al., 2018;Jagoret et al., 2011;Obiri et al., 2007), an important issue when considering the general trend towards intensification of cocoa agriculture in Africa (Ordway et al., 2017;Tscharntke et al., 2011). Our analyses provided a method to generate comparable estimates of population size across taxa, the first step towards being able to study community dynamics of arthropods in cocoa farms. ...
Agricultural intensification is leading to conversion of cocoa agroforestry towards monocultures across the tropics. In the context of cocoa agriculture, arthropods provide a range of ecosystem services and dis‐services. Arthropod pests (e.g., mirids and mealybugs) can cause major damage to crops, whilst pollinators and natural enemies (e.g., predatory insects and parasitoids) have the potential to enhance agricultural yields. Understanding how intensification of cocoa farming affects different arthropod groups is therefore important in maximising the abundance of beneficial arthropod taxa and reducing pest burdens. However, little is known about the influences of agricultural intensification on tropical arthropod communities, especially in Africa, where ~70% of the world's cocoa is produced.
Most research on arthropod communities considers data from different sampling methods separately, as proxies of abundance; whilst these proxies can be informative, estimating true abundance enables direct comparison between arthropod taxa, and therefore the study of community dynamics. Here, we develop a Bayesian hierarchical model that integrates data from three common arthropod survey techniques to estimate population size of arthropod orders and to investigate how arthropod community composition responds to farm shade cover (an indicator of management intensity).
Our results show that eight of 11 arthropod taxa responded to farm shade cover; importantly, brown capsids (the primary pest of cocoa in Africa), Coleoptera pests and Hemiptera pests decreased with increasing farm shade cover, whilst Araneae (natural enemies) and Diptera (potential pollinators) were more abundant in shady farms.
Synthesis and applications. To achieve lower pest burdens and higher abundances of potential pollinators and natural enemies, African cocoa farms should maintain a dense canopy of shade trees. The current shift towards high‐intensity cocoa farming in Africa could result in long‐term losses due to pest infestations and loss of arthropod‐mediated ecosystem services.
... Overall, cocoabased agroforestry systems (hereafter C-AFS) with an optimal shade management provide several benefits to cocoa production in relation to microenvironment amelioration such as reduction of air and soil temperature extremes (heat at lower elevations and cold at higher elevations), reduction of winds speeds, buffering of humidity and soil moisture availability, and improving or maintaining the soil fertility including erosion reduction 9 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Furthermore, the implementation of C-AFS might result in a diversification of incomes for the farmer and ecological improvement as the shade species might provide additional benefits such as timber, fruit or nitrogen fixation 11,12 . However, climate change can also affect the potential distribution of these shade tree species and may reduce the availability of agroforestry systems as a viable approach for climate adaptation 13 . ...
Previous research indicates that some important cocoa cultivated areas in West Africa will become unsuitable for growing cocoa in the next decades. However, it is not clear if this change will be mirrored by the shade tree species that could be used in cocoa-based agroforestry systems (C-AFS). We characterized current and future patterns of habitat suitability for 38 tree species (including cocoa), using a consensus method for species distribution modelling considering for the first time climatic and soil variables. The models projected an increase of up to 6% of the potential suitable area for cocoa by 2060 compared to its current suitable area in West Africa. Furthermore, the suitable area was highly reduced (14.5%) once considering only available land-use not contributing to deforestation. Regarding shade trees, 50% of the 37 shade tree species modelled will experience a decrease in geographic rate extent by 2040 in West Africa, and 60% by 2060. Hotspots of shade tree species richness overlap the current core cocoa production areas in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, suggesting a potential mismatch for the outer areas in West Africa. Our results highlight the importance of transforming cocoa-based agroforestry systems by changing shade tree species composition to adapt this production systems for future climate conditions.
... Considering the temporal dimension, diversification can also be implemented "through time in the same unit of space" like in arable cropping systems (e.g., crop rotation) and in tree-based agroecosystems (e.g., agroforestry trajectories; Jagoret et al. 2018). Both spatial and temporal dimensions of crop diversification are often intertwined, as evidenced by the evolution of different vegetation strata in complex systems such as cocoa-based agroforestry systems (Jagoret et al. 2011;Deheuvels et al. 2012). Species diversification in space and time is used to provide and enhance ecological processes that support multiple ecosystem services (Garcia et al. 2018;Nijmeijer et al. 2019). ...
Duru et al. (Agron Sustain Dev 35:1259-1281, 2015) highlighted a missing tool for studying and improving the performance of cropping systems in the transition to highly diversified agriculture. In response, this paper proposes a concept for designing, modeling, monitoring, and auditing desired ecosystem services, in intercropping and agroforestry systems. We have labelled this concept ESSU (Ecosystem Services functional Spatial Unit). It delimits the smallest spatial unit encompassing all the interacting species and other functional components (e.g., crops, trees, livestock, spontaneous vegetation, semi-natural habitats such as hedges, ditches, forest patches, and animals) that together provide a specified set of ecosystem services. The novel ESSU concept allows representation of an entire diversified agroecosystem by the repetition of the spatial unit that provides the same sets of targeted ecosystem services as the agroecosystem it represents. It can then be used for various activities, such as the (i) design of more efficient agroecological systems according to the targeted ecosystem services; (ii) rapid audit of farming practices for biodiversity/resilience across large tracts of farmland as part of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 targets of sustainable food systems; and (iii) modeling such diversified agroecosystems using a motif adapted to represent the targeted ecosystem services and the species spacing design. We demonstrate that the ESSU concept is highly flexible and applicable to a wide range of diversified agroecosystems, like arable intercropping, crop-tree intercropping, tree-tree agroforestry, and agro-pastoralism. We also show its relevance and suitability for representing temporal changes over 1 year, across several years, and over decades, indicating its generalizability and flexibility. We argue that ESSU could open new theoretical and practical research avenues for the study of diversified agroecosystems. Considered with all the knowledge available on practices, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, ESSU might provide a learning-support tool to fill the knowledge gap about relationships among practices, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services.
... However, the TUV calculated in this study are comparable to those obtained by Jagoret et al. (2011) in central Cameroon through cocoa-based agroforestry farms. For example, Entadrophragma cylindricum has a TUV of 6.8% in Cameroon while it had registered 7.6% in Yangambi (DRC). ...
The Biosphere Reserve of Yangambi (BRY) landscape is facing the challenge of conserving biodiversity while supporting the food security of local communities. Farmers, in search of fertile soil, travel long distances to establish their fields, sometimes in the core area of the reserve. Faced with this reality, agroforestry is an alternative that could contribute to improving local livelihoods while protecting forests and biodiversity in this protected area (PA). This study was conducted in order to identify factors which motivate and/or inhibit farmers for adopting agroforestry practices. To this end, household surveys were conducted in three villages bordering the BRY, namely Bengamisa, Lilanda and Yaselia. The results revealed that only the age of farmers influence significantly agroforestry adoption and 56.2% of the respondents deliberately leave naturally occurring agroforestry species in their farmlands. In order to benefit from the collection of edible caterpillars and fruits, improvement of soil fertility, extraction of medicinal products, production of charcoal and exploitation of timber. However, 43.8% of respondents who were not in favor of agroforestry feared accidents due to windfall, as well as for the collapse of agricultural production. The ethnobotanical analysis revealed that Petersianthus macrocarpus sp. and Erythrophleum suaveolens sp. had the highest use value due to their multi-functionality in the BRY landscape. Thus, the extension work to promote these species could increase the rate of agroforestry adoption and contribute to sedentarization of farmers which in turn reduce the rate of deforestation and promote biodiversity conservation in BRY landscape.
