The prices of the chocolates may soon burn a hole in consumers’ pockets. And it may be all thanks to a tiny bug which is devastating the health of cacao trees in West Africa. Image used for representational purposes/AP
The world’s chocolates are under threat.
A virus spread rapidly by a tiny bug is devastating the health of cacao trees in West Africa, putting the global chocolate supply in jeopardy.
As the crisis continues to deepen in West Africa, the prices of the chocolates may burn a hole in consumers’ pockets.
Here’s all we know about the virus.
The rapidly-spreading virus
According to Earth.com, chocolate trees, or Theobroma cacao, are the source of all the world’s chocolate. The relatively small trees bear fruit called cacao pods, which are large, colourful and contain cacao beans that are used in chocolate production.
According to a new study published in PLoS ONE, the virus damaging Ghanaian cacao harvests is dubbed the Cacao Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD).
It spreads via tiny insects called mealybugs, which transmit the virus as they feed on infected trees, and then carry the virus to healthy trees.
Once infected, the chocolate plant will exhibit a range of symptoms, including swelling of the stems and roots, red veins appearing on immature leaves, leaf discolouration, and rounding and shrinking of the cacao pod.
A fly rests on sun-dried cocoa beans at a warehouse in Kwabeng in the Eastern Region, Ghana. Reuters
Infected trees see their yields plummet within the first year and generally die within a few years.
Only last year, the 27-hectare plot in western Ghana was covered with nearly 6,000 cocoa trees. Today, less than a dozen remain.
The West African country has lost more than 254 million trees to this disease.
According to data compiled since 2018 and obtained by Reuters, Ghana’s cocoa marketing board, Cocobod estimates that 590,000 hectares of plantations have been infected with swollen shoot.
Ghana today has some 1.38 million hectares of land under cocoa cultivation, a figure Cocobod said includes infected trees that are still producing cocoa.
Also read: Why are chocolate prices soaring?
A threat to global supply
Notably, about 50 per cent of the world’s chocolate originates from cacao trees in the West African countries of Ivory Coast and Ghana.
In 2022, the Ivory Coast produced 2.2 million tonnes of cacao and Ghana produced 1.1 million, as per News9.
Scientists attribute the disease’s proliferation to “globalisation, climate change, agricultural intensification and reduced resilence in production system,” as per the study.
Study co-author Benito Chen-Charpentier, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington, said in a statement, “This virus is a real threat to the global supply of chocolate.”
According to Joules, experts discovered a few months ago that cocoa supply wasn’t keeping up with demand. Pixabay
Ghanaian cacao harvests are experiencing massive losses (15-50 per cent) due to CSSVD.
“Production is in long-term decline,” Steve Wateridge, a cocoa expert with Tropical Research Services told Reuters. “We wouldn’t get the lowest crop for 20 years in Ghana and lowest for eight years in Ivory Coast if we hadn’t reached a tipping point.”
There are no easy fixes for the problem because the mealybug carriers are difficult to eradicate.
“Pesticides don’t work well against mealybugs, leaving farmers to try to prevent the spread of the disease by cutting out infected trees and breeding resistant trees. But despite these efforts, Ghana has lost more than 254 million cacao trees in recent years,” Chen-Charpentier said.
Also read: Have a sweet tooth? Here’s why your cravings may burn a hole in your pocket
Possible solution
Vaccinating the trees seems like a feasible option. But it has some limitations.
The high cost of vaccines will add a burden to many farmers. Additionally, the report says that the vaccinated trees produce less cocoa.
One potential solution, according to researchers, is strategically spacing the trees.
Field workers from the Cocoa Health and Extension Division (CHED) identify cocoa trees affected by swollen shoot disease on a farm in the Osino community in the Eastern Region, Ghana. Reuters
Their models show that planting cacao trees at specific distances from each other could disrupt the tiny bugs’ travel routes, lowering the chances of spreading the virus.
“Mealybugs have several ways of movement, including moving from canopy to canopy, being carried by ants or blown by the wind,” Chen-Charpentier said.
“What we needed to do was create a model for cacao growers so they could know how far away they could safely plant vaccinated trees from unvaccinated trees to prevent the spread of the virus while keeping costs manageable for these small farmers.”
The researchers describe two models that surround unvaccinated trees with vaccinated trees, creating a sort of herb immunity in the plantation.
“While still experimental, these models are exciting because they would help farmers protect their crops while helping them achieve a better harvest. This is good for the farmers’ bottom line, as well as our global addiction to chocolate,” Chen-Charpentier added.
Expensive chocolates
While millions of cacao farmers in West Africa are facing a painful watershed moment, analysts believe consumer markets across the world will feel a burn in their pockets.
According to a Reuters report that cited NielsenIQ data, shoppers buying Easter confectionary in the United States found that the chocolates on the shelves were more than 10 per cent more expensive than a year ago.
“The kind of chocolate bar that we’re used to eating, that’s going to become a luxury. It will be available, but it’s going to be twice as expensive,” said Tedd George, an Africa-focused commodities expert with Kleos Advisory.
With inputs from Reuters
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Source link : https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/west-africa-ghana-cacao-tree-virus-world-chocolate-supply-13765484.html/amp
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Publish date : 2024-04-30 07:00:00
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