Chocolate Shortage!!
Kathryn McGowan
According to the NY Times we may be in for a chocolate shortage in the
next 5-10 years. See the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/chocolate-shortage.html
Uh oh, I guess that just means we have to eat as much as we possible
can now, darn! :).
--
--K
Mark Baker
In article <6il5r0$1...@news1.panix.com>,
Kathryn McGowan <kat...@panix.com> wrote:
>According to the NY Times we may be in for a chocolate shortage in the
>next 5-10 years. See the article at:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/chocolate-shortage.html
I'd love to. But I don't have a credit card[1]. I don't suppose you could
summarise the important points here?
[1] What's the point when I'm a student and the credit limit I'd get is much
less than my bank balance; it's easier to pay for things with my switch
(debit) card and if necessary use an interest free overdraft.
Richard J. Sexton
In article <eFn*eO...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
You don't need to pay for access to it.
Chocoholics Take Note: Beloved
Bean in Peril
By CAROL KAESUK YOON
An unusual alliance of manufacturers and
environmental groups has formed to try to prevent
what for many people around the world would be a
disaster of gigantic proportions: a shortage of chocolate.
For while the world's appetite for chocolate grows more
voracious each year, cocoa farms around the globe are
failing, under siege from fungal and viral diseases and
insects.
For decades, cocoa farming has escaped such
problems by moving to new areas in the tropics, even
new countries or continents, where growers find more
rain forest to establish cocoa farms.
But now they are running out of new forests to turn to.
Researchers predict a shortfall in beans from the cacao
tree, the raw material from which chocolate is made, in
as little as five to 10 years.
"We're running out of places in the world" to plant cocoa,
said Dr. Carol Knight, vice president of scientific affairs
at the American Cocoa Research Institute, a nonprofit
group that tracks cocoa bean supply. "We have to figure
out how to grow it sustainably. Nobody wants to lose
chocolate."
To that end, representatives from the Mars, Cadbury,
Nestle and Hershey chocolate companies met with
conservation groups last month at the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute in Panama to talk about
strategies for sustainable farming. The Mars company
paid for the meeting.
Sustainability is a broad notion that includes keeping
farms partially forested to preserve biodiversity, farming
without large doses of pesticides, fungicides or
fertilizers, and replanting rather than abandoning farms.
For cocoa, researchers say, sustainability will require a
shift away from the large plantations carved out of the
rain forest to the smaller farms where cacao trees are
grown in the shade of larger trees. Plantation trees,
exposed to the sun, require more fertilizer, fungicide and
pesticide, and are at greater risk of the spread of pests
and disease. Plantations fail when the cost of
maintaining them becomes prohibitive.
A shift away from plantations could prove a boon to small
farmers and also help preserve rainforests and the many
plant and animal species that appear to flourish in the
natural environment of a cocoa grove.
But the task of designing the small-scale cocoa farm of
the future is daunting because little is known about how
best to grow the trees.
The cacao tree evolved in the New World tropics under
the shade of taller rain forest trees. After six years or so,
the slow growing tree produces fruit, large pods about
the size and shape of a small football that contain about
40 cocoa beans, each the size of a lima bean. They can
be roasted, ground and mixed with sugar and milk to
produce chocolate.
But for reasons that researchers say they do not yet
understand, the cacao tree seems particularly vulnerable
to pests.
Walter Rodriguez, president of a cocoa-growing
cooperative of small farmers in Costa Rica, speaking by
telephone through an interpreter, said that in Costa Rica,
the fungus monilia has been a devastating problem. "In
1978, '79, when monilia came," he said, "the trees
remained but the harvest disappeared. As a product,
cocoa almost disappeared."
In West Africa, black pod disease, a cousin of potato
blight, can cause losses of up to 80 percent of the crop in
a wet year. Experts predict that in Bahia, an area of
Brazil that has had annual productions of hundreds of
thousands of tons of cocoa pods, harvests this year will
be half what they were just a few years ago because of a
fungal disease called witches'-broom.
"There are diseases in South America that are
threatening to wipe out the industry there," said Dr. Jim
Gockowski, an agricultural economist at the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture, speaking by telephone
from Cameroon, "as well as the rest of the world if they
spread."
Tony Lass, an expert on cocoa cultivation at the British
chocolate maker Cadbury Ltd., said that a new species
of black pod disease had evolved and quickly spread to
the border of the Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa
producer.
"It's now sitting on the frontier," Lass said, "where a
million tons of cocoa a year is under threat."
Once disease strikes, trees not only produce fewer
beans but beans of less reliable quality and, some say,
poorer flavor.
In hopes of increasing production, some farmers, like
those in Malaysia, have planted hundreds of acres of
trees on cleared land, but the trees, bereft of shade from
taller trees, appear to be far more vulnerable to diseases
and pests.
Plantations produce large yields in the first few years but
the cost of maintaining the fields soon becomes
prohibitive.
Marlene Machut, a spokeswoman for M&M/Mars,
explained that on plantations, "if there is a disease it runs
rampant across a much larger acreage than in a
small-farm situation, where one farmer may have a
problem but it doesn't leap to the next farm."
Plantation farming is also inefficient, Lass said. "You try
to do the uniform thing to trees, like spraying on a
schedule, and you end up costing yourself money. Not
every tree needs that treatment."
By contrast, said John Lunde, industrial scientist and
director of international environmental programs at
M&M/Mars, "the small farmers with a couple of acres of
land know each tree like a dairy farmer knows each
cow's performance and what works when."
As a result, there is an emerging consensus among
chocolate makers and researchers that the future of
cocoa beans lies with small farmers on more shaded,
forested, intensively tended land.
For conservation advocates this is all good news.
Dr. Russell Greenberg, director of the Smithsonian
Migratory Bird Center, said: "Most of the areas where
tropical migrant birds go for the winter are deforested.
We're interested in crops that promote trees being out
there."
And researchers are finding that cocoa supports many
species, not just birds.
"What's surprising is the amount of diversity that you do
find," Dr. Alison Power said. Dr. Power and Dr. Alex
Flecker, ecologists at Cornell University, have been
working in the Dominican Republic, where cocoa is
grown under the most natural conditions, in the shade of
tall trees that remain from an original tropical forest.
Cocoa also can also be grown in the shade of trees that
have been planted by the farmers themselves.
Comparing patches of natural forest with patches of
cocoa farm, the researchers found that the two types of
habitat supported similar levels of species diversity in
birds, lizards and insects.
Dr. Power noted that the species found on cocoa farms
are not identical to those in natural forests. But compared
with the sterility of banana or oil palm plantations, for
example, small, naturally shaded cocoa farms are
havens of biodiversity.
Many researchers suspect that the species harbored in
these farmed forests may be helping cocoa fare better
against disease than it does in plantations where there is
nothing but cocoa for hundreds of acres.
"The closer it can be grown to a more or less natural
state with some natural predators," Gockowski said,
"that's when you're going to really talk about a
sustainable system."
Dr. Allen M. Young, tropical biologist at the Milwaukee
Public Museum, is carrying out an experiment in Costa
Rica to test just those ideas. While his data are
preliminary, early indications are that the closer the
growing environment is to old-growth forest, the better
cacao trees fare against insects and fungal diseases.
Conversely, the more plantation-like the setting, the more
rampant the pests.
"We've got an organism here that's basically evolved
over millions of years in tropical wet forest," he said.
"Let's test the concept, which is new, of putting the rain
forest to work and returning cacao to its native habitat."
Researchers are also working to fight directly the
diseases and pests that typically reduce cocoa yields by
20 percent to 30 percent.
Possibilities include enlisting the help of fungi that attack
witches'-broom and parasitic wasps that attack insects,
said Dr. Harry Evans, plant pathologist at the
International Institute of Biological Control in England.
Another area of research which remains largely
untapped is the breeding of disease-resistant trees.
The problem, Evans said, is that "you can breed a
resistant wheat in one or two years. It'll take 30 years for
cacao."
Whatever scientists come up with, said B.K. Matlick, an
independent agribusiness consultant specializing in
cocoa, it has to work within the realm of "machete
technology."
Farmers often own just a few acres and make perhaps
$500 a year. "You need to give him something that he
can do with his machete or sweat equity," Matlick said,
"to manage his trees and control pests and diseases
without expensive chemicals or a tractor."
Meanwhile the hope, among conservation groups and
chocolate makers alike, is that sustainably farmed cacao
trees -- with all their attendant birds, insects and other
species -- can keep up.
So far both groups remain optimistic. "There's an
excitement," Lunde said. "Here's this ecosystem built
around a treat that could be good for the world."
--
Richard Sexton 28...@mbz.org Bannockburn, Ontario, Canada
1970 280SE, 1972 280SE http://www.mbz.org
Richard J. Sexton
In article <G1r*lj...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Mark Baker <mba...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>In article <6ilakq$qka$1...@ns1.vrx.net>,
>Richard J. Sexton <ric...@ns1.vrx.net> wrote:
>
>>>I'd love to. But I don't have a credit card[1]. I don't suppose you could
>>>summarise the important points here?
>>
>
>but the advertisers don't want to pay for foreign readers (understandable
>since their adverts will be targetted at Americans)
In theory. Note that I'm not in the US. So I lied
when I clicked on the box that said "are you in the US?"
Mark Baker
>>I'd love to. But I don't have a credit card[1]. I don't suppose you could
>>summarise the important points here?
>
>You don't need to pay for access to it.
You do if you're not in the US. Presumably the adverts pay for US readers
rif...@cybernothing.org
ric...@ns1.vrx.net (Richard J. Sexton) wrote:
>In theory. Note that I'm not in the US. So I lied
>when I clicked on the box that said "are you in the US?"
Oh that's rich... I can't believe they're just relying on the user being
honest. Ho ho ho ho!
That's like the sites which *demand* you give them your name and email address
(if not even more personal info) before letting you download their software.
But they don't validate the info at all. And they just put the stuff up on
their FTP site in a properly set-up directory tree.
rif...@afn.org : "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade..."
Jeff The Riffer :
Drifter... :
Homo Postmortemus :
Mark Baker
In article <89470549...@the.satanic.org>,
<rif...@cyberNOTHING.org> wrote:
>>when I clicked on the box that said "are you in the US?"
>
>Oh that's rich... I can't believe they're just relying on the user being
>honest. Ho ho ho ho!
What else could they do?
I'm not aware of any way to find out where an internet user is in the world.
The Millennium Wombat
mba...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (Mark Baker) writes:
> <rif...@cyberNOTHING.org> wrote:
>>Oh that's rich... I can't believe they're just relying on the user being
>>honest. Ho ho ho ho!
>What else could they do?
>I'm not aware of any way to find out where an internet user is in the world.
Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
user's system is in.
They could look up the user's DNS record and see if it contains a LOC
record; if it does, this contains the latitude and longitude of the
user's system.
Neither is infallible but they are pretty good indicators if present.
HTH
ObChocolate: Poulain Chocolat Noir
/Jon
--
________________________ ____ ______________________________________
j...@serf.org __\_ /
http://serf.org/jon/ \ X/ I was born in nineteen-sixty-weird,
SERF VM:CS&C \/ I am your nightmare net.surfer babe
Richard J. Sexton
In article <jon894...@serf.org>, The Millennium Wombat <j...@serf.org> wrote:
>
>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>user's system is in.
Not any more: .tm, .cc, .st, .nu, .to. .am, .fm, .tv....
Tony Finch
j...@serf.org (The Millennium Wombat) wrote:
>
>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>user's system is in.
Excuse me while I laugh in your face.
Tony.
--
"Gently break the heart of a young lettuce."
Alan Bellingham
ric...@ns1.vrx.net (Richard J. Sexton) wrote:
>In article <jon894...@serf.org>, The Millennium Wombat <j...@serf.org> wrote:
>>
>>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>>user's system is in.
>
>Not any more: .tm, .cc, .st, .nu, .to. .am, .fm, .tv....
And I knew someone with a uk.nokia.co[m?].fi address. Yep, that's the UK
end of a .fi company.
Alan Bellingham
--
al...@lspace.org
www.doughnut.demon.co.uk
Richard J. Sexton
In article <6j75u2$58l$1...@info.noc.demon.net>, Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> wrote:
>j...@serf.org (The Millennium Wombat) wrote:
>>
>>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>>user's system is in.
>
Exacty. You have half a chance using thr IP address though...
It would have worked in my case.
The difference of course, is IP addresses are assigned.
Tony Finch
>>j...@serf.org (The Millennium Wombat) wrote:
>>>
>>>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>>>user's system is in.
>>
>>Excuse me while I laugh in your face.
>
>Exacty. You have half a chance using thr IP address though...
>It would have worked in my case.
>The difference of course, is IP addresses are assigned.
Even then you get a company like Demon that has some machines in the
US with IP addresses assigned by RIPE...
Mark Baker
>>Exacty. You have half a chance using thr IP address though...
>>It would have worked in my case.
>>The difference of course, is IP addresses are assigned.
>
>Even then you get a company like Demon that has some machines in the
>US with IP addresses assigned by RIPE...
(But they're not customer machines).
However, there are places other than the US whose IPs are registered with
ARIN.
Also, IP addresses in Europe that predate RIPE and are therefore not in the
address ranges allocated to RIPE are held by ARIN (though they appear to be
in RIPEs whois database now as well as ARINs, which I don't think they used
to be).
The Millennium Wombat
Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> writes:
j...@serf.org (The Millennium Wombat) wrote:
>>Two-letter top level domains are usually indicative of what country the
>>user's system is in.
>Excuse me while I laugh in your face.
>Tony.
You're very rude and you didn't even mention chocolate.
Just because some two-letter domains have been 'differently used',
shall we say, that doesn't mean the vast majority of hosts which
are in the national domains aren't actually in those countries. Note
that I only said *usually*.
rif...@cybernothing.org
mba...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (Mark Baker) wrote:
> <rif...@cyberNOTHING.org> wrote:
>>>when I clicked on the box that said "are you in the US?"
>>honest. Ho ho ho ho!
>What else could they do?
Check to see if the IP address is from a known US location or not. I know
that the guys at MIT have something set-up like that for downloading the US
version of PGP... If your IP address can't be resolved into a domain name
or if your domain name indicates a non-US location, *pft*
Mind you, it's still possible to fool such systems, just not as trivial.
What I found personally amusing was that when I wanted Netscape 4.05, US
version it was so difficult to get the form to respond (timing out) that I
ended up doing an FTP search on the filename. All the copies I found were
located on FTP servers in other countries. :)
rif...@afn.org : >[...] wise not to assume the American state of the
Jeff The Riffer : >art as applying elsewhere.
Drifter... : Dammit, why the hell not?!?! They have no Internet?
Homo Postmortemus : Invade them!
: --rone, responding to Bruce Baugh