Read the full story in Popular Science.
As the third biggest cocoa powerhouse in the world, Indonesia’s farmers have a lot to lose as climate change threatens the $80-million export industry. As rainfall patterns shift and temperatures climb, land ripe for cocoa cultivation will fall by 9 percent by 2050. Deforestation across the country is also making the fruit trees more susceptible to pest infestation. But while climate adaptation measures are being put in place to protect smallholder farmers (those who harvest on under five acres of land), not everyone is convinced that these measures are working.
In a recently published article in Annals of American Association of Geographers, Sean Kennedy, a professor of regional and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, looked at how climate adaptation is both helping and hindering the lives of cocoa farmers. He specifically focused on the measures implemented by corporations like Mars.
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