This just in: Chocolate Shortage????

I wrote a news story on the possible chocolate shortage which I have posted below. What do you think of this? Is it a prospective issue? Will we, in fact, experience a rise in the price of chocolate along with gas prices, groceries, etc?

The next time a craving for chocolate hits, your wallet may take the blow, according to a professor at the University of Florida Tropical Research and Education Center.

Randy Plotz said that cacao, a must-have ingredient in chocolate production, is threatened by debilitating diseases such as Frosty Pod and Witches’ Broom.

“Frosty Pod is the most destructive disease and directly affects the cacao pod itself, eliminating up to 80 percent of pods on a plant,” Plotz said. “It is a resistant disease, meaning that it would take an abnormally large amount of chemicals to control, which something that cacao crop growers do not have money to do.”

Plotz said that the most important cacao production is in West Africa, where farmers have avoided Frosty Pod and Witches’ Broom.

“We have just been lucky that these two diseases have not been widely spread,” Plotz said.

Cacao accounts for between 70 and 90 percent of chocolate’s price, according to Plotz. If cacao production is hurt, chocolate will be more expensive, he added.

“It is estimated that four million metric tons of cacao beans are produced a year. If the diseases made it to West Africa, that might reduce production by one million metric tons a year and seriously raise the price of chocolate,” Plotz said.

The crop is also depended on by farmers who grow it because other options are limited.

“Small holders in West Africa are dependent on cacao,” Plotz said. “With perennial crops there is a substantial amount of work that goes into maintaining them. It takes five years before you get useful production out of cacao. If it has disease problems, it is hard to make a transition to something else.”

Plotz said that other diseases found in West Africa are less damaging than Frosty Pod or Witches' Broom but can frequently affect the crops.

“There can be one, two, three or four diseases that affect an area where cacao crops are harvested,” Plotz said.

Insects have also posed a threat to cacao crops. Plotz said pests like Cacao Borers, Mealybugs and Mirids can kill the cacao crops but are not worse than disease outbreaks.

“Diseases are 10 times, at least, more important,” Plotz said.

Removing diseased areas of cacao crops is the best defense against harm because the affected areas can spread, according to Plotz. Doing this, however, requires labor that farmers in places like West Africa may not have, Plotz added.

Cacao crops have not always been thought of as important crops that need attention by countries like America, according to Plotz.

“Cacao crops are part of ‘orphan crops,’ which are those that people in developed countries assumed were not important,” Plotz said.

Plotz said that he has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture in Miami in attempting to create a conventional breed of cacao that can resist diseases.

“We have made really good progress considering that a lot of these typical crop problems did not have research dollars behind them to help find solutions,” Plotz said.

Michelle Russell, a University of Florida senior, said the thought of increasing chocolate prices will change things for her.

“First gas, now chocolate? I won't be able to afford to drive to the store and get chocolate to make me feel better when I’m down if this happens,” Russell said. “This is hard to cope with.”

Michael Manfredi, owner of Sweet Dreams ice cream shop on West University Avenue, said that he has to buy large quantities of chocolate in order to make his ice cream in-house.

“I have to buy it no matter what,” Manfredi said.

An employee from Sweet Dreams’ supplier, Michael Richter, said spectators that have entered the chocolate market are one of the causes of price increases seen in January this year.

“Spectators drove the price up to a 30 year high, to $3,000 per metric ton. We haven’t seen $3,000 since 1977,” Richter said.

Richter added that the weakening American dollar may also affect the prices of the candy.

“The U.S. is at a disadvantage because our dollar is weaker,” Richter said. “There has been a 60 to 80 percent decrease of dollar value. The cocoa market is pretty well European based where the Euro is more valuable.”

According to Richter, there are a limited number of tree types from which the cacao beans can be grown.

“There are two, three, maybe four, different trees used for cocoa production around the world,” Richter explained. “60 percent of cacao beans come from Africa.”

Richter, who has been in the food industry for 35 years, said no one answer might be able to fix rising prices.

“No one has a crystal ball,” Richter said. “We have to follow the markets, take advice of experts and take windows of opportunity. You have to make what you feel is an educated guess and you can’t look back after that. I don’t think anybody has the answer.”

Plotz said Frost Pod or Witches' Broom could reach the cacao plants in places like West Africa if the lucky streak does not continue.

“It may happen tomorrow, it may happen 20 years from now,” Plotz said. “When luck runs out, it hits the fan.”