The future of chocolate

                                       Like most things we can only too easily take chocolate for granted...

image from Scientific American

This article might be worth a read if you like chocolate as I do.

The Future of Chocolate

Researchers are racing to fortify the embattled cacao tree and to meet increasing demand for cocoa made from its seeds

By Harold Schmitz and Howard-Yana Shapiro  | Monday, February 13, 2012

Here is the guts of the story.... 

"the five million to six million farmers in the tropics who cultivate the cacao trees from which cocoa is produced rely on the sales of the seeds to feed themselves and their families. Workers extract the seeds (often called beans) from football-shaped pods and then ferment and dry them to form cocoa liquor, butter and powder. The livelihoods of another 40 million to 50 million depend on the long production road the cacao seeds travel from farm to candy on store shelves. In Ivory Coast, which produces 40 percent of the world’s cocoa, such farming accounts for a full 15 percent of GDP and employs 5 percent of households.

“Many of these farmers use their cacao trees like ATM machines. They pick some pods and sell them to quickly raise cash for school fees or medical expenses. The trees play an absolutely critical role in rural life,” observes Peter Läderach of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, who led recent research into the effects of climate change on cacao farming in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Those countries, along with Nigeria and Cameroon, produce 70 percent of the world’s cocoa supply.

But the delicate “chocolate tree,” Theobroma cacao, is in peril."

Read more here:

image found here

Great blog post from Annmaree Kostyk well worth reading here titled
"Adopt a chocolate tree!"

image also found at blog above

text from post: "The chocolate tree not only needs certain animals and insects to do their job with seeding and pollination, but also requires cover trees like that of the rubber tree to protect it from the harsh sun.  You see, the chocolate tree not only prefers to live within 20 degrees north or south of the equator in a place lovingly called “the cocoa belt”, but it also doesn’t care to roast in the blinding sun all day.  Sounds like me.  They like the secluded shaded areas provided by their friends of the forest."

So next time you take a bite of something with chocolate in it bear this in mind... its 

potentially an endangered species and certainly not to be taken for granted.