117 Years Back, Learning Cacao Farming; Today, Davao Farmer Is Reinventing Cacao Farming Unnecessarily!

The double-image above I composed from 2 sources: left is Tabale Cacao Farm and right is Rosit Cacao Farm in Davao City. Can you see the similarity? Look at where the soil is supposed to be, underneath those cacao trees. Full of litter. Litter of fallen leaves, rotting, rotten. 

Excellent! Both soils rich in organic matter.

This is an agriculturist and a teacher speaking, graduate of the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, and a student of organic farming since the mid-1960s. In fact, I was the one who brought to the attention of UPLB, perhaps the whole Philippines, about the merits of organic agriculture.

If you wish, you can ask Nicanor "Nicky" Perlas, the only Filipino who has so far received the Right Livelihood Award, about what kind of organic horticulture I taught at Xavier University College of Agriculture in 1968. He will show you copies of my Horticulture lecture syllabuses. Nicky graduated from my organic farming to biodynamic farming, but he still tells me every time we meet, "Thank you for infecting me with organic farming."

Now that I have established my organic credentials, let me tell you that when I checked the Facebook announcement of Rosit Cacao Farm of a "Davao Region 2-Day Intensive Cacao Farmers Hands-On Training," I noticed immediately this:

"5. Different farm clearing and techniques."

Ladies & gentlemen, there is a better way to plant your cacao graft or budded whatever planting material:

No need to clear your farm.
Do not forget: Your young cacaos need mother trees.

So, plant your cacao in a field already with growing trees.
If not, plant your fast-growing tree species first.

Says William S Lyon in his 1902 book Cacao Culture in the Philippines published by the Bureau of Agriculture:

The planting of shade trees… among the cacao has been observed from time immemorial in all countries where the crop is grown.

The best field to grow your cacao is where there are already growing trees that will provide not only shade to your precious cacao, but also nutrients such as nitrogen – that is why leguminous trees such as "madre de cacao" are preferred as nurse trees.

If your field is bare, start by growing your shade trees – first plant the exotic, fast-growing ones, so that you don't wait too many months before planting your precious cacao. If you want, you can grow along with the exotic species some native species of trees, which grow slower; later you can cut down the exotic and leave the natives to grow with your cacao – after all, the natives of a place are the best growers, whether people or plants or animals!

Look at the double-image above again. With all those leaf litters in both farms, those lands are now very rich in humus. Why are cacao trees thriving? Not only because of the rich soil but because:

They now give shade to each other so that the climate within is conducive to growth. Certainly, those trees are productive!@517