Saving chocolate: Brits use ‘cocoa greenhouse’ to stop spread of plant disease

A London-area greenhouse is making sure that cocoa plants around the world remain disease-free and bountiful to cope with the growing appetite for sweet treats. The goal is to reduce the amount of disease affecting cocoa plants by quarantining them before sharing them with different countries to produce new, more resistant varieties. At a time when changing tastes in emerging economies like China and India are powering global demand for chocolate, the greenhouse acts as a vital resource for producer countries when pests or droughts strike crops.

The basic objective of the project is to allow safe movement of cocoa plants from one part of the world to another.

Andrew Daymond, manager of the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre

The plants are often collected in the wild on expeditions to the tropics on which researchers collect cuttings or seeds from disease-free samples. Britain, which lacks endemic pests or diseases affecting cocoa, provides the optimal location to develop resistant strains.

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