Perhaps just a simple production snag...
>Posted on 06/22/2012 7:22:22 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
The world is on the brink of a chocolate supply crisis owing to the instability in cacao growing areas and soaring demand in developing countries, an expert has warned.
According to David Guest from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, farming methods used by cacao bean growers are in dire need of modernisation.
He warns that global production of cacao, the raw ingredient in chocolate, must increase nearly a quarter by 2020 to keep up with demand from China and other rising economies.
However, cacao growing regions remain some of the most undeveloped and unstable parts of the world and farmers face significant challenges in bringing production up to speed.
Dark, delicious and decadent, the rich flavour of chocolate has inspired passions, addictions and even literature for more than three thousand years.
Not just appetising, it also has known health benefits, including reducing blood pressure and enhancing psychological happiness.
However the main cacao-producing regions are West Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, all areas vulnerable to threats of climate change, political instability, pests and diseases.
Professor Guest and his colleagues have travelled to some of these areas to promote sustainable farming practices for the prized bean.
He has worked with farmers to select better cacao genotypes, to teach improved methods of crop and soil management and find out what can be done to improve technical support given the constraints growers face.
Without education and access to modern methods, these growers face falling being unable to keep up with rising demand.
"One estimate is that global production will need to increase by one million tonnes per year by 2020 - from 3.6 million tonnes in 2009 and 2010 - to meet global demand," the Daily Mail quoted Guest as telling The Register.
"While controlling disease is relatively straightforward in theory, changing farming practice to become more sustainable and rewarding is a much more complex challenge involving social, economic, political and environmental factors," he added.
Is this going to be like the scene from the “Airplane!” movie where they announced the plane was out of coffee?
http://www.fondantsource.com/archfl12oz1.html artificial chocolate flavor will, in the absence of the real thing, become the new standard. By the time the plants are “fixed” there’ll be no call for the product.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
And here we go again. year before last we were on the verge of a “Chocolate Crisis”.
They just come up with this crap to drive the prices up.
Pray I get a pregnant judge.
And here we go again. year before last we were on the verge of a “Chocolate Crisis”.
They just come up with this crap to drive the prices up.
Guess I better stock up, when I go to Granda later this year.
ping
Well, thank God. It's about time something was someone else's fault!
A friend of mine gave me dessert with chocolate that came from a type of cocoa plant that was thought extinct......It was the most wonderful chocolate I had ever tasted......and I can take or leave chocolate.....so this chocolate shortage won’t bother me.....personally, I like madeleine cookies dipped in passion fruit curd.....yummmm
EEEK and ping!
Is it a coincidence that coca prices have really gone down?
My wife will be inconsolable, devastated, as it were. I can see all the things we will have to give up just to afford chocolate ... gas, food, water. All will be sacrificed for the almighty chocolate fix. And I guess I will miss chocolate just a little. ;-)
Passion fruit curd? Could you kindly elaborate?
Just outlaw chocolate and launch a War on Cocoa. Within no time, you’d have more cocoa than you could ever need, and at at a very reasonable price.
Great, one more thing to add to the list of things to stock up on...
Ammo
Food
Ammo
Water
Ammo
CHOCOLATE
Ammo
CHOCOLATE
Without education and access to modern methods, these growers face falling being unable to keep up with rising demand.What a disaster facing the cocoa growers! If supply falls behind demand, what's going to happen to the price???
What are the cocoa growers going to do???
Oh, wait...
I thought this would be about the blight that’s been threatening cacao trees for the past several years. Turns out it’s only about trying to increase production to meet projected demand.
When supplies fall, the prices will rise. And those that think the chocolate worth the price will pay it.
There are ways to get more chocolate flavor out of a given amount of chocolate... mousse, for example.
Beware when they use the word “sustainable”.
Yikes, this is serious. Not as serious as a shortage of hops though. :-)
Chocolate bullets
So how do Americans get into growing this stuff, and make some cash?
“Is this going to be like the scene from the “Airplane!” movie where they announced the plane was out of coffee?”
Indeed. Let’s see, it’s an even year, right? That must mean it’s the end of chocolate as we know it. For you see, in odd years, it’s coffee that’s going to dry up and blow away like dust in the Sahara. I’m 60 years old, so there’s been about 30 cycles of this nonsense since I was born. And let’s not forget about sun spots. As regular as a pendulum swings, the bird-cage-liner press reports at least once a year on the end of life as we know it because of sun spots.
That does it, I’m planting a chocolate tree in my backyard this weekend!
“Bush’s Fault” ?
It is so yummy and so easy, has a tart/sweet flavor and a beautiful color......I find the puree in frozen foods @ Central Market here in Dallas....it may be hard to find but if you have access to one of those “yuppie aren’t I cool for shopping here stores” you may find it....or make your own.....
Passion Fruit Curd....
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened passion-fruit puree
12 large egg yolks
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Directions
Combine sugar, passion-fruit puree, and egg yolks in a medium saucepan, and place over medium heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until thick enough to coat back of spoon, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in butter, piece by piece, until melted. Cool, cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate until needed, up to three days.
Paging the OomPaLoompas....I predict a Chocolate Czar opening....
>Yum! I could probably have it shipped here.... I like sugar cookies flavored w/almond extract dipped into all sorts of lovely fruity things!
Thanks!
That sounds racist.
Blaaaaw. Fake chocolate, like decaf coffee, doesn’t float my boat.
SO... the real reason for UN Agenda 21 is that we are running out of chocolate ?
I do not want to live in a world where women can no longer get their chocolate.
Would recommend pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere to increase crop yields.
This is a dangerous development. Women on their periods, pregnant women, and women who are not pregnant will become physically violent without their daily ration of chocolate.
This is really going to hurt New Orleans! Isn’t that the “Chocolate City?”
Urban dictionary: 1. chocolate city Washington DC, possibly the blackest city in America. Often called the Chocolate city with its vanilla suburbs.
[Only by people who do not consider PG County a suburb.]
Doubleplusgood, they’re raising my chocolate ration from 10 to 20 grams a week.
Peak Chocolate?
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
HL Mencken
Doubleplus ungood!
BTW, that's not true in politics ~ when you get a fake you're better off with nothing at all.
http://www.chocolateweapons.com/
This is potentially catastrophic. I use chocolate fudge to lure women in slinky dresses to my barbecue. Cigars don’t work, and the Hennessey is only effective after several doses of fudge.
“Just outlaw chocolate and launch a War on Cocoa”
Bloomberg’s on it.
They say Cocoa tree will only grow within 10° of the equator.
I've seen a tree in Fullerton CA.
I bet it would grow just fine in southern Florida and Hawaii.
But that was before global warming. /sarc
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