Agrosavia in Palmira has a large collection of different clonal types of Theobroma cacao, the scientific name for cacao. On the 29th March, all agriculture students together with myself and Mrs Katie Neal visited Agrosavia to learn about cacao, see their collection and visit their arboretum of tropical fruit trees.
The day started with us boarding a school bus and driving through the city to Palmira, where we hosted by Agrosavia Palmira. A short talk about the history of Agrosavia and its role in Colombia was given by Claudia Narvaez, before we headed off to the Cacao Collection with Julian Mateus and Eberto Rodriguez.
Julian Mateus gave us an extremely interesting and interactive visit to the cacao collection explaining many of the facets of cacao biology and taxonomy, and giving students the opportunity to try fresh seeds. Questions were asked by students about how to grow cacao and it was determined that the best idea would be to invite specialists from Agrosavia to CB to give us direct feedback on what we are planning.
After the cacao collection we headed off with Eberto to the tropical fruit tree arboretum where students were amazed at the wide variety of trees and fruits in the collection. A lot of fruit was consumed, tattoos painted with the mucilage of certain plants and the miraculous berry was indeed very miraculous in changing the taste perception of limes and lemons.
An excellent day – thank you Agrosavia!