BY SHAWN KENG
IMAGINE a world without chocolate? Put melting ice cap aside for a while, chocolates may melt away from your hands and its very existence. While this seems extreme, devastating effect of climate change should not be undermined. Climate change threatens the survival of cacao plants in West Africa and the rest of the world. Racing against a global scale of chocolate meltdown, scientists from University of California’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) is engineering a genetic fix using CRISPR. At the same time, chocolate makers are pledging for more sustainable supply chain to reduce carbon footprint.
To put a global perspective, over half of the global cacao supply originates from two West African countries – Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. This is not a surprising geo-distribution for a tropical plant such as cacao.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]
According to International Cocoa Organisation, nourishing conditions for cacao can be found exclusively within a narrow belt of the Equator between 10ºN and 10ºS. This includes nitrogen-rich soil, high humidity, constant rainfall and temperature throughout the year.
As temperature rises and humidity drops, cacao farmers are losing grounds and forced to relocate their farming from 350-800 feet (100-250 meters) to 1,500-1,600 feet (450-500 meters) above sea level. This relocation is economically and ecological unsound, as higher mountain areas are mostly reserved for wildlife biodiversity.
In times of jeopardy and choco-nomic (chocolate economic) crisis, science offers an alternative solution. Inside IGI, Myeong-Je Cho, principal investigator and his growing research team at Plant Genomics and Transformation Facility are making cacao more resilient to climate change and avoiding plant diseases that could be made worse due to warmer, drier weather.
This is achieved using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing tool to perform slight DNA change in cacao plant’s genetics. If the research is successful under controlled greenhouse conditions, the enhanced cacao breed can be grown under warmer condition at existing hill farm lands, crossing out the necessity for farm relocation and deforestation in mountain areas.
According to IGI official news release, Brian Staskawicz, Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley along with Myeong-Je Cho, heads the team to create sustainable crops that will feed our growing world population, and counter current and emerging threats, from climate change to plant pathogens. “Cacao can be afflicted by several devastating conditions,” says Staskawicz. “We’re developing CRISPR editing technologies to alter the DNA in cacao plants to become more resistant to both viral and fungal diseases.” This is in line with IGI’s goal of developing and deploying DNA engineering technologies to solve pressing world problems which include food sustainability and human well-being.
Apart from biological implications, this phenomenon presents a looming economic threat. According to Business Insider and World Cocoa Foundation, Mars, the $35 billion corporation best known for Snickers, is proactively curbing this choco-nomic crisis presented by climate change. The company is pledging $1 billion commitment to reduce carbon footprint by more than 60% to mitigate the climate change effect.
Today, people around the world enjoy chocolate in thousands of different forms, consuming more than 4.5 million tonnes of cocoa beans annually. While a choco-pocalypse may deprive you from chocolates, this crisis is risking employment of 40 to 50 million people globally who depend on the chocolate business for their livelihood. This includes an estimated 5 million smallholder cacao farmers who grow this valuable crop.
“We’re trying to go all in here,” Barry Parkin, Mars’ chief sustainability officer, told Business Insider. “There are obviously commitments the world is leaning into but, frankly, we don’t think we’re getting there fast enough collectively.” Mars is not alone in curbing climate change. Big chocolate makers such as Nestlé, Mondelez, Cargill, and Olam are acknowledging the high consumption chocolate business is contributing to destruction of virgin forest, and this crisis has made companies to come together in agreement.
This agreement pledged companies to develop a plan-of-action to tackle deforestation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference at Bonn, Germany.
While chocolate lovers yearn that chocolate-doomsday may never come, scientists and large chocolate makers are taking actions now to preserve the world’s chocolate industry, making sure your future generations are not deprived from pleasure of chocolate.
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