Global chocolate supply under ‘real threat’ from rapidly spreading virus: expert

A-choc-alypse now?

Chocoholics may want to stock up on candy bars while they can — a devastating disease is ravaging the cacao trees in West Africa, potentially putting the global chocolate supply in jeopardy, scientists have found.

“This virus is a real threat to the global supply of chocolate,” said Benito Chen-Charpentier, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington, who authored the disheartening study published recently in the journal PLOS One.

Dubbed the cacao swollen shoot virus disease, it spreads via several species of mealybugs that feed on the chocolate crop.

Once infected, the plant can exhibit a range of symptoms, including swelling of the stems and roots, red veins appearing on immature leaves, and rounding and shrinking of the cacao pod.

Scientists attribute the disease’s proliferation to “globalization, climate change, agricultural intensification and reduced resilience in production system,” per the study.

Experts estimate that CSSVD caused harvest losses of 15% to 20% in Ghana, which is the second-largest producer of the crop, behind the neighboring Ivory Coast. (More than half the world’s chocolate originates from these two nations.)

“Ghana has lost more than 254 million cacao trees in recent years,” lamented Chen-Charpentier.

Unfortunately, fighting this plague has been an uphill battle. The mealybugs are highly resistant to pesticides, relegating farmers to try to curb the spread by destroying infected plants, breeding disease-resistant trees and even inoculating crops with CSSVD vaccines, the scientist explained.

However, these vaccines are expensive — putting a burden on low-paid farmers — and also result in smaller cacao yields, effectively defeating their purpose.

Thankfully, Chen-Charpentier and his team have devised a bold new way to combat the choc-blocking scourge by using mathematical data to determine how far apart vaccinated trees need to be planted to stop mealybugs from hopping from plant to plant and spreading the virus.

“Mealybugs have several ways of movement, including moving from canopy to canopy, being carried by ants or blown by the wind,” the mathematician explained. “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 in order to prevent the spread of the virus while keeping costs manageable for these small farmers.”

Using these methods, researchers created models that allow farmers to form a defensive ring of vaccinated cacao trees around unvaxxed trees — like elephants forming a circle to protect their young.

While still in their embryonic phase, these models would theoretically help farmers protect their crops and maximize their harvest, killing two birds with one stone.

Not to mention that this mechanism could help save this popular treat from going extinct.

“This is good for the farmers’ bottom line, as well as our global addiction to chocolate,” declared Chen-Charpentier.

Unfortunately, CSSVD isn’t the only threat to the global cocoa trade.

Chocolate factories in Ivory Coast and Ghana have stopped operating or reduced their processing capabilities because they cannot afford to buy beans, causing cocoa prices to more than double over the past year, eclipsing several all-time highs.