Chocolate In Crisis!

The world is on the brink of a chocolate crisis, a leading researcher has warned.

Climate change and disease are threatening the future of the prized Theobroma cacao plant, which is the source of chocolate.

Now botanist Dr James Richardson says the clock is ticking in the fight to safeguard cacao.

And he is heading a team at the forefront of research into protecting under-threat crops - with the help of funding raised by players of People's Postcode Lottery.

Dr Richardson, a research associate at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), said: "There are a variety of reasons why the cacao industry is under threat. One is the increasing intensity of drought; another is disease.

"If conditions continue to deteriorate in terms of incidents of drought... if that continues, it is a race against time. The two problems of drought and disease kind of work together to make the issue worse.

"We're putting all our efforts into understanding what we can do about that. But we have finite resources and finite time to be able to do that before the cacao industry starts to face quite serious problems."

The team is studying drought-tolerant species related to the main plant source of chocolate - known as Theobroma cacao - which mainly grows in wet forest conditions.

If Dr Richardson's team establish why the other plants can thrive in dry areas, they hope that will help them improve the production of cacao. It takes 400 cocoa beans to make one pound of chocolate, and each cacao tree produces approximately 2,500 beans.

He said: "We look for species that are related to Theobroma cacao and try to determine whether any of those have tolerance to drought. Once we determine that, we focus on those species; try to understand their biology a bit more, try to understand their genetics.

"Hopefully through understanding their tolerance to drought, we might be able to apply that information to improve the production of cacao in Theobroma cacao itself."

Dr Richardson began his groundbreaking work at RBGE and is continuing while based at the University College Cork as a lecturer in plant science.

"I worked on a number of groups of plants in all part of the Tropics - in Latin America, in Africa, in southeast Asia - demonstrating that plants generally don't have a very good capacity to adapt to severe physiological challenges like drought.

"But the message of the issues that these plants faced wasn't getting across because nobody was interested in those particular groups of plants.

"I made a conscious decision to try to work on a group of plants that were of interest to the general public. Being based in Colombia at the time, the obvious group of plants to work on was Theobroma and their relatives."

Dr Richardson says the climate's fragile state means the industry could be facing severe problems soon.

Consumers have already seen steep increases in products.

Dr Richardson explained: "The main producing area of cacao is in west Africa in countries like Ivory Coast and Ghana. Those areas faced extreme drought in 2022/23, so the productivity was extremely low in those regions and because of that the prices went up in early 2024. In a period of about two to three months they went up threefold."

He added: "That's just an example of something recent that is occurring but if that gets more serious - which it could do with increased incidents of drought - then the chocolate industry could face quite severe problems in the not-too-distant future. I would say in the next five to 10 years probably."

Disease is also getting a grip of crops weakened by drier conditions.

He said: "For example, there is a disease which is caused by a fungus called witches' broom, and that pretty much wiped out the Brazilian cacao industry in the late 80s and 90s. It is still a huge problem, but that is just one example."

It is an issue all consumers should care about, according to Dr Richardson.

"There are huge numbers of cacao growers around the world that depend on the industry. If the industry starts to have problems, it's quite likely that those cacao growers will have problems also" he said.

Dr Richardson has special thanks for Postcode Lottery players who helped him launch the vital work and have so far raised more than £5.8 Million for RBGE.

He said: "I started my research programme when I was still based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Players of People's Postcode Lottery funded part of my research and they initiated the research programme. I'm extremely grateful to them for assisting in getting the whole research programme going."

Making A Difference

People's Postcode Lottery players are helping deserving causes like RBGE make a difference every single day. Read more about the range of Charities that our players support.

Related Links

• RBGE website