Chocolate May Go Extinct Due to Unsustainable Farming Practices

How to get guys to care about global warming? Threaten their beer. How to get women to care? Start talking about chocolate going extinct. (That’s not sexist, is it?)

The Nature Conservation Resource Council (NCRC) recently announced that within 20 years, chocolate may be as rare as caviar. The reason seems to be unsustainable farming practices. Whereas chocolate, in its native state, grows in rainforest conditions with high biodiversity, it’s now farmed by clearing the forest and using hybrid seeds to produce higher output in a shorter amount of time. This leads to soil erosion and a shorter lifespan for the cacao trees, which will eventually lead to an overall shortage of cacao.

From Triple Pundit:

While many a chocoholic may lament this news, I wish to provide our readers with a little firsthand “reality check.” Most of the world’s cacao is grown in West Africa. While living in Ghana during my study-abroad year as an undergraduate, I was struck by the fact that, even though Ghana is a net exporter of cacao, most of the country’s inhabitants could not afford to purchase a Cadbury or Hershey’s bar. Although I shared many a fresh, delicious cacao fruit with my Ghanaian friends, actually eating a chocolate bar was considered a luxury.

For Ghanaians, “no chocolate 20 years from now” is now. Such reminders are necessary to place in perspective predictions of ecological change and impacts on human populations. While we, in wealthy, industrialized countries, may fear with trepidation the loss of resources and biodiversity associated with global warming, it is important to remember that half the world’s peoples are already living that reality.

Start breaking your dependence now, people. I know I’ll have to. But a world without chocolate sounds like a sad, sad place. What will we put in s’mores?

Link [Triple Pundit]
Photo credit: Flickr user Fimb