Adoption of cocoa

Adoption of perennial crops such as cocoa is dramatically changing agriculture in the tropical uplands, as is innovation and adoption of new technologies. While this is true worldwide, the change in the Sulawesi uplands occurred more deeply and rapidly than anywhere else in the tropical world. Although farmers have creatively seized opportunities, the adoption of cocoa and inputs is part of a process of resource and technology transfer from existing potential, which includes information, experience, and products that the Bugis profit from through their family and trading networks between Sabah, Malaysia, and nearby Sulawesi. The information system was partially established following the DI/TII (Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia) uprising that developed in the 1950s against the regime of President Sukarno. In the mid-1960s, the loss of the war triggered substantial Bugis migration from Sulawesi to Sabah. In addition, rice growing and the Green Revolution diffused innovations that have benefited perennial crops, mainly through migration from paddy fields to cocoa boom regions (Ruf, Ehret, and Yoddang 1996). This transfer of resources and energy to "cocoa reconversion" is frequent in world cocoa stories. For example, the transfer of labor and capital from trade in oil palm to cocoa was demonstrated in West Africa (Chauveau 1993; Ingham 1981). This stresses the importance of a network to circulate information about a new crop and availability of land to trigger migration and adoption of the crop and inputs. How have information and capital been combined by Sulawesi farmers to undertake migration and adopt cocoa? Why and how did farmers adopt a high frequency of harvests and more intense use of fertilizer and herbicides than other cocoa-growing countries, especially those in West Africa? Why so rapidly? (Résumé d'auteur