Venezuelan Cocoa Producers
and Their Trade: A Restoration
in Progress
Being a cocoa producer is more than a job; it is a lifetime vocation transmitted from one generation to the next. This ancestral mark turns the farmers we work with into true cocoa devotees. For them, the history of sowing and cultivating cocoa runs through their veins.
Although they’ve had to face many obstacles in the recent past, including lost harvests, the Venezuelan cocoa-producers have restarted the cultivation with renewed energy by reforesting the fields with new sowings, which has recovered the culture of their ancestor’s cocoa.
Due to the hard work and dedication of the new generations, Venezuela is reassuming the development of premium quality cocoa and, thus, renewing cocoa’s culture as an essential source of income and happiness to these devoted farmers.
A Vital Event: Environmental Conditions
For optimal growth, the cocoa tree needs shade. To provide this to the harvest, farmers introduce certain species to their plantations (usually fruit trees), which helps provide the much-needed shade. The most common choices are plantain and banana trees. Leguminous plants such as coral or guama trees are used as permanent shade.
Although the minerals and nutrients offered by the ground are really important, we can’t forget about the relative moisture, which is also vital. These requirements caused cocoa cultivation to concentrate in low tropical lands. The combination of these elements determines the quality of the bean.
While climatic and environmental conditions have favored the production of this seed of unique origin, the final touch is given by the fermentation and drying processes that also contribute to the exquisite taste of Makonnelli’s chocolates.
Venezuelan Cocoa Producers and Their Trade: A Restoration in Progress
Even though some decades ago, the cultivation of cocoa in Venezuela fell drastically; nowadays, there is an outstanding movement of agricultural producers bringing it back to life.
Although new generations didn’t know in detail the cocoa-producing culture experienced in this country some years ago, this lifestyle’s ancestral force has never entirely disappeared in traditional farming areas, which is why the cocoa knowledge has always been present and is now being restored with such impetus.
Quality of Life for Producers
Makonnelli recognizes that cocoa producers are essential to our products’ production and that educational and economic support is necessary to achieve sustainable and productive processes.
For this reason, one of our main objectives is to provide technical education to our producers to extend and improve the cultivation of cocoa through updated knowledge. We keep our eyes on the most beautiful part of the cocoa journey — its people.
Our ultimate goal is to exalt Venezuelan cocoa producers and let them be known as cocoa specialists of great value.
