Globalchocolatesupplyunderrealthreatfromrapidlyspreadingvirus: 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,” 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, said in a statement.Dubbed the cacao swollen shoot virus disease (CSSVD), the virus 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, in part, 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 after the neighboring Ivory Coast (over half the world’s chocolate originates in 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 and 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 — especially for 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...