[MPWG] In Twenty Years Chocolate Will Be A Rare Delicacy

[Jean Giblette]

Thanks, Robin.

Quoted from the Independent article:

"Despite price rises on the trading floor, precious little reaches  
the smallholders who make up 95 per cent of growers, according to Mr.  
Lass, a former Cadburys trader and ethical sourcing advisor who has  
co-authored a book on the cocoa industry.
"These smallholders earn just 80 cents a day," he says. "So there is  
no incentive to replant trees when they die off, and to wait up to  
five years for a new crop, and no younger generation around to do the  
replanting."

Note the main thrust of these articles, which is to celebrate the  
genome sequencing in hopes that a genetic engineering "solution" will  
be found, when all we have to do is incentivize the farmers to  
replant on a regular basis and to maintain/enhance the resilience of  
the small holdings.

These articles portray the microcosm of what's wrong with medicinal  
plant production worldwide:  the growers are neither adequately  
compensated nor rewarded for good stewardship.  At the same time,  
industrial ag (including its ultimate manifestation, genetic  
engineering) displaces the growers.  These dynamics are based on  
social constructs, and social constructs can be revised.

Meanwhile, Mother Nature is waiting to reward us with chocolate and  
all the abundance of the fertile earth.  All we have to do is follow  
her lead and cooperate with her.  Why is this so hard for us to  
understand?

Jean


On Nov 12, 2010, at 10:50 AM, MoonBranch Botanicals wrote:

> Chocolate Black Hole; Chocolate consumption is increasing faster  
> than production, meaning the future will probably be less  
> chocolaty....
>
> http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-11/future-chocolate-will- 
> be-rare-delicacy-analysts-say
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/ 
> chocolate-worth-its-weight-in-gold-2127874.html
>
> http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/sweet-breakthrough- 
> scientists-led-candy-company-sequence-chocolate-genome
>
>
>
> Robin Alton Suggs
> MoonBranch Botanicals
> 5294 Yellow Creek Road
> Robbinsville, North Carolina 28771
> USA
>
> Telephone: 828.479.2788
> Email: moonbranch at earthlink.net
>
> www.moonbranch.com
>              &
> www.localharvest.org/store/M16074
>
> Member:
> Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project; Farm Partner
> Green Products Alliance
> North Carolina Consortium on Natural Medicines
> North Carolina Goodness Grows/NCDA&CS
> Southwestern North Carolina RC&D Council
> United Plant Savers
>
> “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what  
> medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state  
> as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”
>
> - Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>
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Jean Giblette, Owner
HIGH FALLS GARDENS
Box 125 Philmont NY 12565
518-672-7365, hfg at capital.net
www.highfallsgardens.net




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