Special Envoy to Ivory Coast
The branches of a solitary néré stretch above the cocoa field. The tropical tree, whose bark is used as a decoction in traditional medicine, was miraculously preserved when the cultivation of beans replaced the primary forest twenty years ago. But recently, new species are rising, like him, among the cocoa trees. A colatier which gives fruit prized in wedding dinners, an avocado tree, a bete, the wood of which will one day make good furniture, and others.
"When they are bigger, these trees will create cocoa shade and retain the soil during the rain,"
hopes Mamadou Zela, the owner of the two-hectare field, located in the rural region of La Mé in the south of the country. Ivory Coast.
Since he took over the farm after his father's death, it has produced less and less cocoa.
“Five years ago we still harvested two and a half tonnes of beans
,” he recalls.
Then the yield fell to a
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