Expanding Mexican

Cocoa Production

'THE following article on Mexican

cocoa production was published

in the London Public Ledger in mid- February. The Ledger is a daily news paper devoted to reports of raw materials and commodity markets.

MEXICO’S 1950 production of cocoa beans is expected to reach an all time record and to exceed the large 1947 production of 15,518.000 pounds. The 1949 crop has been unofficially estimated at 13,228.000 pounds and the 1948 crop was officially reported at 14,330,000 pounds.

Although cocoa is indigenous to Mexico and was grown there before the Spanish Conquest, it never has developed into a leading commercial crop despite the fact that Mexico possesses the natural re sources necessary for large-scale ex pansion. It has been estimated that in Tabasco and Chiapas alone, which pro duce more than 95 per cent, of the cocoa grown in Mexico, there are at least 250,000 acres of rich land suitable for cocoa cultivation, most of which is as yet undeveloped agriculturally. There also are promising areas for the expansion of cocoa cultivation in the States of Cam peche and Veracruz.

It has been only recently and as a result of war-time conditions, that an active interest has been taken by the Mexican Government and growers in the protection and expansion of the cocoa in dustry. The Mexican Government in augurated during the war a cocoa de velopment programme designed to encourage extension of acfeage and to increase the yield per acre by replacing the low-yielding Criollo variety by high yielding Forasteros and Criollo hybrids.

Domestic consumption in Mexico is estimated at 11,023,000 pounds annually.

Of this amount about 4,400,000 pounds is absorbed by two factories producing cocoa butter. The balance is used by the chocolate industry. Thus, the potential supply for export from the 1949 crop is 2,200,000 pounds. An additional quantity, also estimated at about 2,200,000 pounds, has been stored for many months by the Union de Credito Agricola e Industrial de Tabasco waiting for higher prices.