Cocoa bean harvest: A sweet opportunity for Kingdom
Saudi Arabia provides an environment conducive to the shrub’s growth, says expert
In an unprecedented experience for the Kingdom, a harvest season of more than 200 cocoa shrubs began this year in Jazan following several years of planting the Filipino seedlings.
The foreign plant is a new experiment for the Kingdom as it plans on testing out the long-term success of planting the favored sweet treat. The supervisor of the Mountain Areas Development and Reconstruction Authority in Jazan, Bandar Al-Fifi, said: “The cocoa shrub is a tropical or subtropical shrub and is native to South America and East Asia. It was presented to the
Mountain Regions Development and Reconstruction Authority a few years back, specifically to the agricultural research station.” He added: “The cultivation process was carried out six years ago by bringing seeds and seedlings from the Philippines. The seeds were cultivated and seedlings were distributed to some interested farmers in the region.”
He told Arab News that it was difficult at first to encourage farmers to invest in the plant, as many were hesitant to introduce a plant not indigenous to the region in order to facilitate the establishment of manufacturing factories and grow a local market.
“In addition to the fact that the temperature gap between small
and mature shrubs is not big, due to our proximity to the equator, Saudi Arabia is located below the tropical line, which creates environmental conditions that help the shrub grow,” said Al-Fifi.
Gebran Al-Maliki, one of the
owners of a cocoa plantation in Jazan, told Arab News: “Adding cocoa to the Kingdom’s agricultural field is one of the innovative things in Saudi Arabia and it began to give good results that would broadly stimulate the development process,
provide an agricultural model that can be trusted and improve experience in a country that supports its farmers and provides them with all the required capabilities.” He received seeds and seedlings at the end of 2016 as an experiment in
which everyone was granted support. “Some wanted to give this new experience a try, because it is similar to the coffee plant. It is an ordinary shrub, just like fruit and citrus trees, but it is a drought-tolerant shrub that is watered once a week.”