7 páginas.

Peru is the eighth largest producer of cacao beans globally, but high cadmium contents are constraining access to international markets which have set upper thresholds for permitted concentrations in chocolate and derivatives. Preliminary data have suggested that high cadmium concentrations in cacao beans are restricted to specific regions in the country, but to date no reliable maps exist of expected cadmium concentrations in soils and cacao beans. Drawing on >2000 representative samples of cacao beans and soils we developed multiple national and regional random forest models to develop predictive maps of cadmium in soil and cacao beans across the area suitable for cacao cultivation. Our model projections show that elevated concentrations of cadmium in cacao soils and beans are largely restricted to the northern parts of the country in the departments of Tumbes, Piura, Amazonas and Lore...