To save chocolate lovers from the agony of a potential candy barshortage, McLean candy giant Mars is investing $10 million in a five-year project to develop cacao trees that fight drought, disease andpoor harvests.
Mars will announce today that it is partnering with IBM and theDepartment of Agriculture to sequence and analyze the entire cocoagenome. The team will be identifying the characteristics that make abetter cacao tree. Then it plans to breed the genetically superiorspecimens to battle the foes that have shrunk the number of beans tomake chocolate over the years.
'We have the ability as a private company to take charge of thefuture,' Howard-Yana Shapiro, global director of plant science forMars, said.
Unlocking the secrets of the genome and eliminating the guessworkin traditional breeding could bring economic stability to the 6.5million small family cocoa farmers around the world and help fendoff the environmental assaults that inflict $700 million to $800million in damages to farmers each year, Shapiro said.
Mars plans to make the research results free and accessiblethrough the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, agroup that supports agricultural innovation, as they becomeavailable. The intent is to prevent opportunists from patenting theplant's key genes.
Although chocolate seems ubiquitous, the cocoa on which itdepends is a volatile crop. West Africa, which produces 70 percentof the world's cocoa, has been hammered by bad weather in the pastfew years. Rainfall has dropped, as temperatures rise.
Decades ago, Brazil was a top cocoa exporter. Then a fungus knownas witches' broom attacked cacao trees, devastating the industry.About 10 to 15 percent of cocoa comes from the Americas, Shapirosaid.
In the past year, cocoa prices have risen almost 50 percent asglobal supply of the beans has shrunk. Cocoa futures fell nearly 1percent yesterday.
Those kind of economics have focused scientific attention on thecacao plant. In recent years, wheat, rice and corn have been themost common subject of genetic research and alterations. The Marsinitiative is among the few genetic studies of cocoa, althoughcurrently, there are a number of plant genome projects in Brazilinvolving cocoa along with eucalyptus, sugar cane and citrus.
'It's forward-thinking,' said David Morris, senior analyst withmarket research firm Mintel. 'Looking across the board at commodityprice increases and the fact that the planet will be increasinglytaxed to produce food commodities, they're planning accordingly.'
Mars has been championing cocoa research for the past 20 years,which includes work with the USDA to improve breeding and reduce thethreat of pests and disease. But until today's announcement, thecompany has been focusing more on proving the purported healthbenefits of chocolate. The company has been promoting cocoa-basedflavanols, antioxidants that may reduce bad cholesterol and improveblood circulation.
This health spin continues to pay dividends, as healthy heartbenefits of dark chocolate have particularly resonated with olderconsumers, Morris said.
'It provides a health halo to a product that's otherwiseconsidered unhealthy,' he said.
The scientists expect it will take about a year to generatecocoa's raw DNA. The cocoa genome consists of about 500 million basepairs, whereas the human genome is made up of 3 billion base pairs.
Then it's up to three IBM scientists to analyze this data andlook for patterns.
'That's where the fun begins,' said Ajay Royyuru, senior managerof IBM's Computational Biology Center. 'You have the sequence andyou start asking what you can learn from the genome and you can getanswers to these questions.'
Once scientists identify the useful genes, they'll be able toaccelerate the breeding process.
'You don't have to wait an entire crop cycle to find out if youselected the right plant or not,' Royyuru said.
That'll be the key to healthier, stronger cocoa crops with higheryields. They'll be able to absorb water and nutrients moreefficiently, and resist pests and disease.
'We'll have the full toolbox to use as opposed to the pocket fullof tools we have now,' Shapiro said.
And chocolate lovers will have the powers of science on theirside.
