Chocolate

(for radio)

Chocolate. That one word can cause mouths to water, eyes to glisten. It’s a confection that millions of us love, crave, even need, yet few of us know the tremendous social and economic role that our favorite delicacy has played for millennia, and how uncertain its future is.

When chocolate first became known to Europeans, it had long been both a currency and a royal entitlement among the Ancient Maya of Central America. Chocolate is made from the cacao plant, harvested in the form of bitter seeds. These seeds were used as currency by the Maya, while their kings consumed chocolate in the form of a bitter drink. It was one of the first cash crops ever. The Spanish took cacao across the ocean, adding sweeteners for the first time, and exported it across Europe. Here in America, the chocolate industry generates billions of dollars a year.

But chocolate may have a grim future. Cacao is a tropical plant, originating in the American jungles, and now grown in the African tropics, where chocolate comes from now. The producers of cacao are poor, farmers, who see only a fraction of the billions to be made in the chocolate trade. Competition for their shrinking farmlands comes in the form of narcotics, for which farmers can make a substantially higher income. Unfortunately, cacao is losing that battle. To make matters worse, more than one-third of each year’s cacao crop is lost to disease and pests.

Is there hope for our beloved chocolate? There is artificial chocolate, but we can tell the difference, and we have our preference. Cacao may yet be saved, but if you were looking for an excuse indulge yourself, here it is – the chocolate smorgasbord may one day be a thing of the past, enjoy it while you can.