Chocolate is on track to go extinct in 40 years

a reply to: Blender5L

You beat me to it. I totally remember the whole banana fiasko! That is the first thing I thought of with this chocolate story. There is an interesting documentary on how Iceland grows tons of bananas. So if they can grow bananas, I'm sure Chocolate will be saved.

So if there is no such thing as climate change, why are Mars spending a billion on preparing for dealing with it?

They like throwing a billion down the drain?

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Blender5L

You beat me to it. I totally remember the whole banana fiasko! That is the first thing I thought of with this chocolate story. There is an interesting documentary on how Iceland grows tons of bananas. So if they can grow bananas, I'm sure Chocolate will be saved.

It's still fresh in my mind the banana msm stories that came out a few years ago, people quite literally went 'banana's' over it

Sounds like an interesting documentary, who would have thought iceland would of all places?

a reply to: Painterz

They say a lot of things, but it doesn't mean they're telling the truth on half of it.

a reply to: Abysha

If we combine our powers, nothing will go extinct!

Not sure what I think about Chinese GMO chocolate.

And, women need chocolate AND bacon.
Trust me.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

GMO chocolate sounds scary :|

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

I don't think many would miss the durian fruit. Even where they are eaten, they are still from mass transit.

originally posted by: Painterz
So if there is no such thing as climate change, why are Mars spending a billion on preparing for dealing with it?

They like throwing a billion down the drain?

Not necessarily. Find a strain that can grow in other conditions and you could grow your product in other places than the climates it grows in now even if there is no crisis. And you increase supply to meet increasing demand which helps keep your own overhead low.

a reply to: Blender5L

If you do a google search for "Mars GMO cocoa", it'll show articles from at least 2010 showing Mars' efforts to introduce GMO cocoa plants, particularly into Western Africa.

Some of the articles from 2010 have titles like "GMO Cocoa Targeted for West Africa" & "70% of World's Raw Chocolate Soon To Be Genetically Modified". They were about the plans by companies like Mars to replace the cocoa plants in Western Africa with upcoming GMO versions. Western Africa is where around 70% of cocoa production takes place.

Some of the articles from 2011 are about Mars co-funding the "Cacao Genome Project " along with IBM and the USDA. This project aimed to map the plant's genome. And some articles from 2014-2015 have ominous titles like "Can GMOs Save Chocolate?" and "The Race to Save Chocolate".

In other words, we can find the trail of articles showing their plans to replace the current plants with GMO versions. And many of the people writing the articles are using clickbait language to get readers worked up about it.

I just broke the news to my sweetheart.