Is coffee transition to cocoa a doubtful adaptation strategy for smallholders in Mesoamerica?

Sonia Quiroga, Cristina Suárez, Juan Diego Solís, Pablo Martínez-Juárez and Juan Fernández-Manjarrés ()
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Sonia Quiroga: UCM - Universidad Complutense de Madrid = Complutense University of Madrid [Madrid]
Cristina Suárez: UAH - Universidad de Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, España] = University of Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, Spain] = Université d'Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, Espagne]
Pablo Martínez-Juárez: UAH - Universidad de Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, España] = University of Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, Spain] = Université d'Alcalá [Alcalá de Henares, Espagne]
Juan Fernández-Manjarrés: ESE - Ecologie, Société et Evolution (ex-Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution) - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Climate change will have a permanent impact on the Mesoamerican agricultural sector. Current crops, such as shade coffee that is grown in middle-elevation areas, are already showing signs of climatic stress and may not secure agricultural subsistence. Therefore, the first stages of crop diversification are being observed in countries such as Nicaragua, where the migration of new crops like non-shade cocoa may lead to a reorganisation of ecological and social structure. Diversification is an already undergoing process whose underlying motivations and decision-making are not yet fully understood. This study analyses subjacent motivations and contexts that lead to the potential incorporation of cocoa crops in presentday Nicaraguan coffee farms. To achieve that, three main motivations were identified: climatic, economic, and governmental. An econometric analysis was performed over the variables that affect farmers' motivations and decisions to analyse first this decision-making process and, second to understand how social and climatic evolution over the next decades will impact the context under which agricultural output is shaped.

Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
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Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025, 12 (1), pp.243. ⟨10.1057/s41599-024-04261-1⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04963268

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-04261-1

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