Panama

Panama is a small cacao producer whose output is concentrated on the humid Caribbean coast in the west of the country. Cacao is largely a smallholder crop with a strong Indigenous farming tradition, and a significant share is organically certified for export.

Production centres on Bocas del Toro, a lowland province with a long-standing cacao history, and the adjacent Bocas del Toro section of the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, an autonomous Indigenous territory. Across both areas much of the cacao is grown by Ngäbe and Naso Indigenous families in shaded agroforestry plots, where cacao carries deep cultural significance. Many growers are organised through COCABO, founded in 1952 and the oldest cooperative in Panama, which markets organic cacao.

Cultivated Panamanian cacao is genetically admixed, classed traditionally as Trinitario. The country is a minor producer by global volume, and the sector has at times been pressured by disease and price cycles, but its combination of organic certification, Indigenous farming heritage and Caribbean agroforestry landscapes gives Panama a recognisable place among small Central American fine-cacao origins.