Production sector and government debate strategies to strengthen cocoa farming

The Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Confederation (CNA) participated, on Wednesday (05/04), in the meeting of the Cocoa Production Chain Sector Chamber to discuss strategies to strengthen the sector.

According to CNA's technical advisor, Raquel Miranda, who followed the debates, one of the topics of the meeting was the current panorama of monitoring and containing the spread of cocoa moniliasis in Brazil.

The General Coordination of Plant Protection (CGPP) of the Ministry of Agriculture reported that after joint actions and with the support of several sectoral institutions, the outbreak of the disease in the state of Acre is well controlled and presents a low risk.

However, in the state of Amazonas, in the triple border region (Brazil, Peru and Colombia), there are still challenges to the effective control of moniliasis, mainly related to the issue of infrastructure and logistics. Another challenge is in relation to the workforce to carry out cultural treatments to control the outbreak of the disease.

During the meeting, it was reported by the board of directors of the Executive Committee of the Cocoa Farming Plan (Ceplac) the sending of clones for resistance tests to moniliasis in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The project aims to select cocoa plants resistant to witches' broom and moniliasis and make resistant plants available to cocoa farmers in the future.

Another topic discussed at the meeting was the sharing of information about the step-by-step inspection carried out by the International Agricultural Surveillance System (Vigiagro) during the import of cocoa at the Port of Ilhéus (BA).

Vigiagro's Regular Transit Inspection Coordination highlighted the department's continuous and transparent work in inspecting cargo arriving at the port, highlighting that in recent years there have been no occurrences of quarantine pests when importing cocoa beans.