Rare raw material? Cocoa suffers from climate change and disease

Those with a sweet tooth should be better off with this prognosis: How Julia Sica reports in Standard, the raw material for chocolate could become scarce in a few years, around 2030. The cocoa tree is threatened by climate change, fungi and aggressive viruses. Sica cites figures from the International Cocoa Organization, according to which plant diseases are already destroying around 38 percent of the harvest.

Cultivation in monocultures increases stresses and strains, such as extreme drought and heat, for the trees and offers optimal conditions for viruses to spread. In the article, Liam Dolan, botanist at the Gregor Mendel Institute for Molecular Plant Biology in Vienna, warns: "The death of the cocoa trees warns us of the imminent threat to many other plants and animals on earth."

Photo by Tetiana Bykovets on Unsplash