ReviewPloS one2023
Critical evaluation of the agro-ecological system of the Republic of South Africa (30°S) in response to unclassified claims of cocoa farming beyond 20°S of the equator.
Review in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cocoa is a climate sensitive species that has never been reported to grow or survive outside its natural climate belt (20°N-20°S of the equator). Recent reports claimed that cocoa is currently cultivated in Eswatini (26°S), Botswana (22°S), Namibia (22°S), Lesotho (29°S), and the Republic of South Africa "RSA" (30°S). How true are these reports? Climatological and epidemiological investigations were setup to debunk or support these claims. The clime of RSA was investigated since it was the farthest from the cocoa production clime. A review of the climate data of RSA showed 12.4 and 6.1% increase in night-time and day-time temperatures, respectively i.e., from 9.7 and 24.4°C (1901-1930) to 10.9 and 25.9°C (1991-2020), affirming the influence of global warming. The consistent increase in the moving average from 1901-2021 with a fluctuation in the seasonal variation, validates this research. A global connection was established between climate suitability for cocoa production and cocoa disease/pathogen establishment (r = -0.39, P-value = 0.089) at P<0.05. Further analysis showed that the annual temperature (10.8°C≥Temp≥25.8°C), humidity (62%) and sunshine distribution (8.4hours/month) of RSA was suitable for cocoa farming, even though water availability was below the recommended level (rainfall≥463.6mm and rainy_days≤5days/month), farm irrigation systems are currently in use. Other findings showed that KwaZulu-Natal was 100% suitable for cocoa farming, followed by Gauteng, Mpumalanga (86%), Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Northwest (71%), Free State, Northern Cape, and Western Cape (57%). The estimated black pod disease status of KwaZulu-Natal (8.6%) and Eastern Cape (6.6%) affirmed the conduciveness of RSA for cocoa farming.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.