At the rate we are going, chocolate is going to be very rare and very pricey in about 20 years. According to the Cocoa Research Association, we are consuming more chocolate than we’re producing cocoa. This is an issue. We will eventually run out. THAT MEANS NO MORE CHOCOLATE, PEOPLE.
According to Gizmodo, “Cocoa's notoriously difficult to harvest, meaning more and more small-scale West African growers—who make an average of 80 cents per day—have little incentive not to turn to more lucrative crops, like rubber, or give up farming altogether in favor of more stable opportunities in cities.”
80 cents per day? In perspective, that makes our 20 cents per minute rate look astronomical! (It’s actually quite cheap.) I wonder if there is a way for the chocolate lovers of the world to ban together and start a fund to better pay the cocoa farmers in Ghana. As much as I love carob chips (a chocolate substitute), on my Pinkberry, I don’t want my Kit Kat bar to be made from them. And I don’t want to play with the possibility of one day paying $15 for a Nestle Crunch. I don’t even want to think about what Halloween would be like.
Thankfully, both Hershey’s and Mars, Inc. have sequenced the cacao genome, which means bigger and stronger cocoa trees will be able to grow. Hopefully between that and higher wages for our Ghana-based cocoa farmers, we’ll be in the clear.
Just in case, though, I’m going to go ahead and stock up on M&M’s.
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