The chocolate industry is fretting that the world could be in the throes of a chocolate shortage in less than a decade. So, pick your options, addicts. Or hope folks like researcher Mark Guiltinan can ride to the rescue before the big crunch hits.
Cocoa beans come from cocoa trees.
But farmers decided to push things and cleared rain forests to start big plantations. But when they grow in small, isolated patches of rain forest, the vegetation and insect life seem somehow to buffer the trees from problems, Smith said. Where disease breaks out, it usually doesn't hop from grove to grove, she said. When disease hits a plantation, though, it's like a common cold in a second-grade classroom. It can sweep through, almost unchecked.