167Ð173 Rice NY

As the world faces alarming rates of tropical forest loss, some agricultural systems offer a glimmer of hope. In particular, agroforestry, where crops are cultivated in association with trees, provides some of the ecological benefits of natural forest while allowing farmers to make a living off their land (1–3). However, only in agroforestry systems that involve the production of globally traded and economically important commodities, such as cocoa (Theobroma cacao), can we realistically expect that enough land and people will be affected to make a difference. The environmental benefits that cacao farms may confer depend upon the management system. On one hand, we find a low-input and generally low-yield system that requires few, if any, agrochemicals. These farms often incorporate remnant forest shade into the farm management system. In contrast, are the systems characterized by high-input, high-yield farms, often with little or no shade. These are extremes of a continuum and between them we find managed agroforestry systems with planted shade trees and moderate levels of chemical inputs. We will develop the argument that systems using diverse shade offer the greatest potential for long-term production, biodiversity conservation, and environmental protection. We begin our discussion of how different shade cacao systems influence tropical biological diversity, then provide a brief overview of patterns of production, and finally explore ways in which the pattern of production might be changed to optimize biological diversity, cacao production, and the livelihood of the millions of small farmers who grow the crop.