Alright! Now this is getting serious and I want you people to quit eating anything chocolate so that the shortage doesn't adversely affect me.

"There's no easy way to say this: You're eating too much chocolate, all of you. And it's getting so out of hand that the world could be headed towards a potentially disastrous (if you love chocolate) scenario if it doesn't stop.

Those are, roughly speaking, the words of two huge chocolate makers, Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut. And there's some data to back them up.

Chocolate deficits, whereby farmers produce less cocoa than the world eats, are becoming the norm. Already, we are in the midst of what could be the longest streak of consecutive chocolate deficits in more than 50 years. It also looks like deficits aren't just carrying over from year-to-year—the industry expects them to grow. Last year, the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. By 2020, the two chocolate-makers warn that that number could swell to 1 million metric tons, a more than 14-fold increase; by 2030, they think the deficit could reach 2 million metric tons.

The problem is, for one, a supply issue. Dry weather in West Africa (specifically in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, where more than 70 percent of the world's cocoa is produced) has greatly decreased production in the region. A nasty fungal disease known as frosty pod hasn't helped either. The International Cocoa Organization estimates it has wiped out between 30 percent and 40 percent of global cocoa production. Because of all this, cocoa farming has proven a particularly tough business, and many farmers have shifted to more profitable crops, like corn, as a result."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...t-of-chocolate/

I am appealing to your Christmas spirit. Make the sacrifice. Quit eating chocolate stuff so there's plenty for me.

OK, now this is serious. To heck with all the other problems, this needs to be solved right now!

"OK, now this is serious. To heck with all the other problems, this needs to be solved right now!"

I have a solution. Everyone quit eating chocolate to ensure I have plenty. But Algernonpj is being uncooperative (selfish lout). Speak to him for me, Sanguine. He might listen to you.

I am starting to wonder if these chocolate panic folks aren't also peak oil alarmists. I have been hearing this for years, yet here we are with plenty of chocolate.

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #7

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Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3

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OK, now this is serious. To heck with all the other problems, this needs to be solved right now!

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We need a bi-partisan committee and full senate hearings to study the problem with full transparency. We also need a .gov website for a diversity of input from sources ranging from every day folks to ivy league educated experts. Analysis of the result ought to be out sourced to the University of East Anglia since their Climate Research Unit (CRU) did such a good job processing data backing man made global warming.

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