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• Its seeds are not hardy. Once outside the pod, the seeds of the cacao plant cannot be exposed to low temperature or low humidity, or they will not germinate.
• It's particularly vulnerable to pests and disease. The cacao tree is susceptible to pod rots, wilts, and fungus. An infestation of Monilia pod rot in Costa Rica in the 1980s decimated cacao production there by 73 percent. Black pod disease, a cousin of potato blight, is a huge problem in West Africa, where it causes losses of up to 80 percent of the crop in wet years. A new species of the fungus that causes black pod disease has now spread to the border of the Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer. In Brazil, the world's second largest producer, "witches’ broom" fungus is a growing threat.
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