Sara Ana

In a beautiful location by the Alto Beni river, surrounded by forest, lies the research station Sara Ana.

  

 Here, the Swiss Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL), carry out a long-term experiment in cooperation with local partners. Over a period of 20 years, several cacao production systems are compared:

1. conventional monoculture: exclusively cacao trees that receive both artificial fertilizer and pesticides
2. organic monoculture:the same but without artificial fertilizer and pesticides
3. a conventional agroforestry system: cacao interspresed with other trees, artificial fertilizer and pesticides are used
4. an organic agroforestry system: the same but without artificial fertilizer and pesticides
5. the Successional Agroforestry System (SAFS): the most complex of the production systems managed according to the SAFS principles 

The experiment is part of a larger research project with further experiments in Kenia and India.