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

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 present-day 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.