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I certainly did not mean to intimate that fully Organic-certified practices are the norm in the cacao industry, and in fact I agree that they do instead represent a small fraction of overall growth. We are always very clear about this with our customers at Bittersweet. On the other hand, I do want people to understand the holistic natural process that brings them these wonderful finished products, and I think this kind of alarmist posting actually does nothing at all to help consumers understand the real environment in which their chocolate originates. The world of cacao is simply much more complex and variable than you indicate.

To begin with, different cacao growing regions have very different pest profiles. Pod borer is a fairly common problem in Indonesia, Mirids common in west Africa, Frosty pod, Black Pod and Witches’ Broom in Latin America, etc. All these regions have very different organic and chemical responses to these various pests and diseases, and to suggest (as your posting clearly does--to me anyway) that pesticides and fungicides are used broadly and year-round everywhere in the cocoa growing world is overly simplistic to say the least. In my experience (having visited more than a few cocoa farms, some organic/pesticide-free, many not), the use of pesticides and fungicides is pretty responsible and quite limited in the vast majority of cases, and contrary to the article on your site, I have yet to encounter a biological control that is more expensive than chemicals for the farmer. (See, for example, the use of ant nests as pod borer prevention in Sulawesi—an organic method of control that is far cheaper than chemical alternatives, and therefore more widely used.) I would be comfortable eating cacao from non-organic farms I’ve visited in places like Peru, Venezuela, Trinidad, Jamaica and Mexico, but I’m also very happy with organic cacao that we source from Madagascar, and fairtrade cacao we source from Ghana. In short, there are simply lots of grey areas in the world of cocoa, and I believe that what people need is to learn more about the life cycle of their chocolate from start to finish, rather than simplistic scare tactics.

If you want to support change in the industry and you’re worried about pesticide and fungicide use, then by all means buy chocolate (or cacao, if you’re a chocolate maker) that is certified Organic! There’s plenty of good stuff out there, and I would like to point out that the Bittersweet Origins chocolates we make--what this posting is really all about in the first place--are crafted with organic or pesticide-free cacao, organic fairtrade cocoa butter, and organic cane sugar (and organic dried milk where applicable). That’s all. I agree that organic processes represent the best future for cacao and chocolate, and we certainly manifest that belief in the products we manufacture here at Bittersweet.