In the last few years, there have been
a lot of breathless news articles about the upcoming shortage of chocolate.
Around the world, demand for chocolate is rising, particularly in China and India,
and the supply isn't matching it.
It turns out that the cocoa beans that get turned into chocolate
are a really difficult crop to grow.
Cocoa needs fairly specific climate conditions.
It needs a lot of management.
And about 30 to 40% of the entire world's crop of cocoa
is just lost to pests and diseases every year.
So what the modern world needs is new, hardier, more pest
resistant varieties of cocoa with higher yields.
Botanists send plant cuttings around the world,
so they can cross breed them and see what the results are.
But the trouble is: if you're sending cuttings around the world,
you might be sending diseases with them, and that could be devastating.
Which is why in a rural bit of southern England, there
sits the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre.
- The quarantine process lasts for two years.
The reason why it is so long is because viruses
can potentially stay latent in the plant for a long period of time.
We generally receive plant material from what we call
"gene banks", so these are the research centres
that have collections of lots of different types of cocoa plants.
That plant material arrives as what we call "bud sticks".
We will inspect that material in the laboratory, make sure there's
no signs of fungal spores or insects on it.
But whilst it's quite easy to spot a pest or a fungal problem,
viral diseases can be much more difficult to spot.
- When a researcher or grower orders
a cutting from here, they know that they won't also get something nasty
that could infect their
existing cocoa crop or even their entire region's cocoa crop.
But what they'll receive isn't the original plant that was sent in.
This isn't like quarantine for parcels or for people.
They don't take an incoming cocoa plant, put it in the bit of this warehouse
that I'm not allowed to be in because it's quarantined, and then just send it on.
After the two years' quarantine, the centre here has a known safe plant,
one of these that I'm actually allowed to stand near, and then they can send
cuttings out on request, over and over and over again.
- There are other quarantine centres for other plants.
There's a quarantine facility for bananas, for example.
I believe there's one in Scotland for potatoes.
A particular thing about cocoa is that a lot of the pests
and diseases of cocoa are only found in particular geographical regions.
If growers can be supplied with plants which are more resilient to these threats,
so more resilient to pests and diseases,
and more resilient
to extreme temperatures, then that helps in securing the future of the crop.
- There is one obvious question, of course, if all the unsafe cocoa
that might have pests in it is sitting somewhere around here in rural England...
what if one of those pests escapes?
- In the UK, we don't grow cocoa.
It's too cold, but that's actually a positive thing
in terms of the location of the quarantine centre.
So the fact that we're located in a country that does not grow cocoa
means there's no risk of pests and diseases
which are endemic to cocoa entering the facility.
So if we were to receive any material which had a nasty disease,
that material would be discarded.
It would be autoclaved just as a precaution, but
the chance of it establishing here would be almost zero.
- If there does end up being a worldwide cocoa shortage,
it doesn't mean that the grocery store shelves will end up empty.
It just means that the price of chocolate will rise and rise and rise
as supply falls.
And the big manufacturers would very much like to make sure
that chocolate does not go back to being a luxury.
And the folks here at the quarantine centre
are doing their bit to make sure that doesn't happen.