Swollen Shoot
The Gold Coast produces about half of the world's cocoa, but this vast industry could be entirely destroyed if the insidious disease known as swollen shoot was allowed to spread unchecked. The only way to deal with the disease is to cut down affected trees and prepare the whole ground before replanting, and this is what the commission of three international scientists appointed by the Colonial Office has recommended. Putting the recommendation into practice is another matter. Cocoa-planting in the Gold Coast is in the hands of about a quarter of a million small farmers, peasant- owners who work the land with their family and perhaps one or two hired workers. They have been getting excellent prices for their cocoa in the last few years, and as long as there is a healthy pod on one of their trees they will understandably prefer to sell than to burn. Already the rumour that the trees were going to be destroyed (attributed, of course, to all the wrong reasons) has caused a' good deal of unrest, which may have had something to do with the disturbances there last spring. If the Government decides to act on the commission's recommendations (and it clearly has no choice in the matter), an enormous propaganda campaign will have to be undertaken, with the largely forlorn object of explaining to an illiterate peasantry the harsh necessities of scientific agriculture. It is uncertain how long it will take before diseased plantations can start producing agaiii; a tree takes seven to ten years before it yields, but to replant the affected areas immediately would almost certainly mean another crisis on the present scale in a few years' time. Fortunately the Cocoa Marketing Board in West Africa has large financial reserves, which have already to some extent been used to combat swollen shoot, though it is unlikely that the peasants will be much consoled by compensation for the loss of their trees. Mr. Strachey has said that cocoa-rationing will not be necessary ; how much chocolate we shall get in our sweet ration is more problematic.
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