Chocolate lovers, make reservations. The black gold of gluttony could be lacking, and that, as of 2020. A shortage that affects the Ivory Coast, which produces 40% of the chocolate in the world. There are several reasons for this: the demand for chocolate is exploding, with new consumers in emerging countries, such as China, and climate change.
Emmanuel Axel was elected the best artisan chocolatier in Ivory Coast. He now looks at cocoa butter with concern: "That's the precious sesame, they've already started replacing it with palm oil, sesame oil, and other fats, and today it is the beans that are threatened. "
The other enemy of chocolate is the lack of water. Less rainfall, due to deforestation, which amplifies the effects of climate change. For 60 years the Ivorian forests have been cut to be replaced by cocoa trees, the forest covers only 4% of the country.
The solution, reforest.
"As you can see, we have rows of cacao trees, in the meantime we have banana trees, we also have fruit trees," says Paul Kangah, an agricultural technician at the Nzrama cooperative, who not only cover the young people. shadow shots but also to reconstruct the ecology that lets us go. "