Fabricio Soares (born 6 July 1918 in

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own distr ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

; died 14 March 1986 in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, Portugal) was a Portuguese agronomist. His research into

Black pod disease Black pod disease is a protozoal disease of Cocoa trees. This pathogen if left untreated can destroy all yields; annually the pathogen can cause a yield loss of up to 1/3 and up to 10% of total trees can be lost completely. With the value of the ...

in the 1950s resulted in a substantial increase in

cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

cultivation in

Portuguese Guinea Portuguese Guinea ( pt, Guiné), called the Overseas Province of Guinea from 1951 until 1972 and then State of Guinea from 1972 until 1974, was a West African colony of Portugal from 1588 until 10 September 1974, when it gained independence as Gu ...

(now

Guinea Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

Early life and career

Soares was born in Leiria, Portugal, in 1918, and, as a student, attended the Agrarian School of Bragança, where he earned a degree in agronomy in 1940. He took a job with the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture in 1941, moving to the Disease Control Office ( Escritório pelo Controlo de Doenças) in 1944.

Research and breakthrough

In the 1940s Portugal was under the Estado Novo; the

corporatist Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...

regime installed by

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

António de Oliveira Salazar António de Oliveira Salazar (, , ; 28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese dictator who served as President of the Council of Ministers from 1932 to 1968. Having come to power under the ("National Dictatorship"), he reframed the re ...

in 1933. The regime sought to maximise the independence of the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire ( pt, Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas (''Ultramar Português'') or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (''Império Colonial Português''), was composed of the overseas colonies, factories, and the l ...

through, among other things, the expansion of agriculture in its overseas territories. In 1948 Soares was sent to Portuguese Guinea to join a team researching diseases and pests that were preventing the large-scale cultivation of cocoa. From mid-1953 he was in charge of a cultivation programme along the

Corubal River The Corubal, also known as the Rio Corubal or Tomine, is a river of West Africa, a major tributary of the Geba River. For a short distance, it forms the international border between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. It has a length of approximately . H ...

, near the border of

French Guinea French Guinea (french: Guinée française) was a French colonial possession in West Africa. Its borders, while changed over time, were in 1958 those of the current independent nation of Guinea. French Guinea was established by France in 1891, ...

, based at the Ribamar research station, north west of the village of Guilege. By experimenting with cocoa beans obtained from other West African regions, during the period 1953 to 1956, he was able to isolate a strain of the Forastero bean that was resistant to the

Phytophthora megakarya ''Phytophthora megakarya'' is an oomycete plant pathogen that causes black pod disease in cocoa trees in west and central Africa. This pathogen can cause detrimental loss of yield in the economically important cocoa industry, worth approximate ...

pathogen which causes Black pod disease. The work carried out by team resulted in a rapid expansion in cocoa cultivation in Portuguese Guinea; between 1956 and 1961 production rose 410% to 63,000 tons per annum. The Ribamar team carried out further research on the

Agrobacterium tumefaciens ''Agrobacterium radiobacter'' (more commonly known as ''Agrobacterium tumefaciens'') is the causal agent of crown gall disease (the formation of tumours) in over 140 species of eudicots. It is a rod-shaped, Gram-negative soil bacterium. Sympto ...

pathogen, which causes Crown gall disease.

Return to Portugal

In January 1963, however, the

Guinea-Bissau War of Independence The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence (), or the Bissau-Guinean War of Independence, was an armed independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea from 1963 to 1974. It was fought between Portugal and the African Party for the Independ ...

began with an attack on the Portuguese garrison at Tite, near the Corubal river. The Ribamar research station was abandoned within a month and Soares returned to Portugal, where he spent 14 years working for the Ministry of Agriculture in

Later research

Following the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

of April 1974, Portuguese Guinea was recognised by the Portuguese government as the independent nation of

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

.Chilcote, Ronald H., ''The Struggle for Guinea-Bissau'', ''Africa Today'', July 1975), pp. 57-61 In 1978 Soares retired from the Ministry of Agriculture and, in January 1979, took on the role of consultant to the

USDA The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

, travelling between

Bissau Bissau () is the capital, and largest city of Guinea-Bissau. Bissau had a population of 492,004. Bissau is located on the Geba River estuary, off the Atlantic Ocean, and is Guinea-Bissau's largest city, major port, and its administrative and m ...

ant the Franklin Providence research station, near the settlement of

Boe, Guinea-Bissau Boe (full name Madina do Boe) is a settlement in the southeastern Gabú Region of Guinea-Bissau. The population is mostly of poor Fulani speaking herders. Although geologically rich in bauxite, the mineral deposits have not been exploited to any ...

. The research station was acquired by Franklin Providence Management, an agricultural fund, in 2004.www.european-business.com/emag/2005/01/ Profit from Research
European Business, January 2005

Final years

Soares retired permanently in 1983, and died in a car accident in Lisbon on 14 March 1986.

References

Literature

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Soares, Fabricio Portuguese agronomists 20th-century Portuguese botanists 1918 births People from Leiria 1986 deaths Road incident deaths in Portugal 20th-century agronomists