Chocolate production ends in 2050!

Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana account for 70% of the world's chocolate. However, in Ghana, the cocoa spit shoot virus has been plaguing the trees for more than 6 years. And there is no cure for the virus yet. Of course, it is not easy to take possible precautions because if you replant the cocoa tree, you have to wait for the fruit for about 4 years. This is not to mention the fact that people who grow, collect and produce cocoa trees for the world are unemployed. Chocolate, which is a staple in our homes, comes to our table through special processes. Cocoa trees, which grow under very special conditions, are not the kind of trees you can plant and grow in your garden, because humid and high rainfall areas are ideal for them.

It's not just the virus that these trees are at risk from, but rising temperatures could seriously disrupt the ecology of the region. Research by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has shown that the average temperature for these countries will rise significantly by 2050. This may sound normal for those who don't know how hot cocoa trees grow, but we think it's understandable if we say that they need temperatures between 20 and 38 degrees Celsius.

Don't worry, there is still hope because scientists at the University of California Berkeley have reported that they are using CRISPR technology (gene modification tool) to alter the DNA of cocoa plants. If they can modify the plants to withstand higher temperatures and lower humidity, future generations could enjoy the chocolate we all love.Cocoa was first brought to West Africa by European chocolate companies who wanted to grow it where labor was cheap or free.This colonial legacy is still present in the chocolate industry today.As the chocolate industry has grown over the years, so has the demand for cheap cocoa. But most cocoa farmers earn less than a dollar a day, far, far below the poverty line.

Children in West Africa live in conditions of severe poverty and many of them start working at a young age to support their families. Some children go to cocoa farms because they need work and traffickers tell them it pays well, but other children are sold by their own relatives to traffickers or farm owners. To understand the gravity of this situation created by traffickers, here is an example: Traffickers often smuggle young children from small villages in neighboring African countries like Burkina Faso and Mali, two of the poorest countries in the world. In one village in Burkina Faso, almost every mother in the village has a child who has been trafficked to cocoa farms. What happens to the trafficked children? They are sold to cocoa farmers.