RADA urges farmers to use variety approach to tackle frosty pod disease

The Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) has recommended that cocoa farmers with fields susceptible to frosty pod disease mitigate the threat and preserve quality by introducing disease-tolerant varieties of the crop.

Director of Project Management and Coordination at RADA, Dwayne Henry, told JIS News in an interview that this aims to ensure the sustainability and profitability of cocoa farming in Jamaica, while maintaining its reputation for producing some of the world’s finest cocoa.

“Jamaica’s fine flavour cocoa designation is a combination of many varieties that some have developed over the years. Cocoa is a forest crop, so it could stay there and cross-breed with each other and they develop unique varieties and from those varieties come unique, fine-flavour, premium quality cocoa,” Henry said.

“So, we will not want to promote a wholescale replacement of those varieties that are endemic to Jamaica by replacing them with a single variety. What we recommend is a combination to maintain our fine-flavour cocoa designation, so that we can fetch the premium price on the market,” he added.

Henry pointed out that Jamaica is one of eight countries or regions that produce fine-flavoured cocoa, meaning that cocoa quality fetches the highest price on the cocoa trade market and the cocoa trade globally.

Frosty pod rot, caused by the fungus Moniliophthora roreri, has posed a severe threat to cocoa production in the country since its discovery in 2016.

“It’s basically a devastating disease that damages cocoa pods and seeds, leading to significant yield losses and economic impacts. So, definitely it’s affecting the livelihoods of some very dependent farmers on cocoa production,” explained Henry.

He further elaborated on the strategy to break the disease cycle without diminishing the quality of the crop.

“You might introduce some tolerant varieties throughout your field that have other susceptible varieties. But once the pest reaches that tolerant variety, it takes a long time to overwhelm that variety. In other words, it breaks the momentum of disease progression throughout the field,” said Henry

He noted, further, that cocoa farming forms a significant part of the agricultural sector and the wider economy, contributing to foreign exchange and employment in rural areas.

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