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WHY IT IS NECESSARY TO PRESERVE THE ORIGINAL CACAO?

Cacao is the first and most important ingredient of every chocolate product, and over the years, the demand for this precious fruit has overcome the production capacities. With the annual increase in demand of over 3%, this gap has the tendency to deepen even more. This expansion puts a lot of pressure on the farmers to produce higher, more productive yields. Cacao trees have already reached their limits due to aridity, various diseases, extinction of their habitats, and exhausting the soil capacities. Let alone the fact that farmers, who don't receive sufficient incentives from the government, lack in the workforce and heavy duty equipment.

To overcome these challenges, scientists have modified the cacao plant to be drought and disease resistant. These modified plants give much bigger yield than the original cacao plants, with proportionally reduced bean flavor. With the organized financial support from the USAID, farmers have no other options but to grow modified varieties instead of original, local varieties. Due to the initiated cultivation of cacao in other, non-native countries, today, more than 70% of the world’s cocoa production comes from Africa.

Renown Swiss chocolate producers avoid using modified cacao varieties. They opt for its original tasty varieties. On the other hand, companies like Mars have for many years been developing the GMO cacao varieties in Brazil, claiming that it is inevitable for 70% of cocoa to be genetically modified in order to be saved.

In South America, USAID managed to spoil the original cacao habitation, the central tropical forest. Under the false pretenses to prevent the cultivation of coca leaves in Peru, Columbia, and Equador and promises of the same profits, they provided local Amazon farmers with the free cacao plant hybrids. This seed they presented as the variety made by the late Equador scientist Homer Castro. USAID cacao is genetically modified and shares no resemblance to the original Castro variety. As a result, Equador, once a producer of the finest quality cacao, exports 80% of modified beans. A few decades ago, they were producing none of these varieties.

The increasing demand for chocolate, or better yet, the increasing obesity and depression amongst people, has indirectly endangered the survival of the original cacao varieties because their yield is insufficient to satisfy the ever-rising demand. Once, even the most common chocolate was tastier than the ones with 60% cacao. Nowadays, the lack of flavor is compensated with artificial flavors, mostly from GMO soybeans and corn. The deteriorated health of the modern generation, therefore, should not come as a surprise.

The situation with cacao reflects the changes happening to almost all the foods we eat. We genetically modify food that becomes resistant to drought, diseases, or insects, while, at the same time, we destroy their biodiversity, natural habitat, and soil composition, which supplies them with nutrients.

Saving cacao and its original varieties will prevent further degradation of our planet and maintain its divine taste. Try our new product, Nuestra Maca Cacao, made of the Peruvian maca extract and wild native Criollo cacao with an original aroma and unique flavor. By purchasing it, you are directly helping the survival of the Ashaninka tribe, which collects these god-given beans exclusively for you. Find it in our webshop.