Between 2000 and 2024, cocoa cultivation in the floodplains of the Brazilian Amazon transformed Pará’s share of national production from 14.4 per cent to 46.2 per cent, while average yields rose from under 0.75 tonnes per hectare to over 0.84 tonnes.
Elene Elda Mota and her husband Geovanne navigate narrow streams in Barcarena, northern Pará, where they manage native cocoa growing naturally within the forest canopy. The dense floodplain vegetation provides natural irrigation and protection against vassoura de bruxa, the fungus that devastated Brazilian crops in the 1980s, as well as droughts and heavy rainfall.
Traditional communities — ribeirinhos, Indigenous groups and quilombolas — have historically managed wild cacao through extractive practices that maintain high genetic diversity. The floodplain systems integrate cocoa with other perennial and annual crops, creating high-agrobiodiversity landscapes rooted in centuries of indigenous migration and river-based genetic exchange.
Marlucia Martins, postgraduate coordinator at the Paraense Emílio Goeldi Museum, notes that native cocoa benefits from abundant local pollinators, resulting in fruit more resistant to disease and superior in flavour. Pará’s reforested cocoa areas expanded from 38,000 hectares to 165,000 hectares over the same 24-year period, according to a report produced by the Amazon Foundation for Support of Studies and Research in partnership with the Pará state government.
Artisanal production faces infrastructure gaps.
Elene processes her cocoa into artisanal chocolate bars, caramelised nibs and powders, having learnt fermentation techniques in 2013 through local workshops. Peak fruiting from March to June sometimes requires collecting pods while standing knee-deep in water. After five to seven days of fermentation, beans are sun-dried, roasted, peeled and refined in a chocolate melanger before packaging.
The cultivation relies on no external inputs, yet producers face logistics bottlenecks, limited credit access and inadequate institutional support. A review in Agroforestry Systems notes that strengthening cooperatives, modernising marketing and expanding market opportunities through public policies that add value to riverine products are essential for long-term sustainability.
Experts compare Pará’s emerging chocolate sector to Burgundy wine or Ethiopian coffee, citing the unique terroir flavours of native beans shaped by local climate, soil and biodiversity. The systems contribute to the cultural-ecological heritage of Amazonian cocoa cultivation, reinforcing connections between communities, biodiversity and sustainable land use.
Source: Agroforestry Systems, Springer.
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