Climate-smart sustainable agriculture in low-to-intermediate shade agroforests

Over a period of two years (2015-2017), including one normal and one exceptionally dry year, we measured cocoa production, losses to disease, soil fertility, temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture, carbon stocks, and biodiversity of multiple taxa in 20 cocoa agroforest plots (30x30 m) selected systematically along a gradient of shade-tree cover (14-76% shade-tree cover) in a globally-significant cocoa growing region in Ghana, West Africa.

To isolate the effects of shade trees from confounding factors such as differences in farm management, soil type, and local microclimate, all plots were compared with paired monoculture plots on the same farms. Full methods are published in Blaser et al. 2018 Nature Sustainability.