 |
 |
The cacao tree.
|
|
|
Chocolate comes from the seeds of the cacao plant, which is native to South America''s tropical rain forest. At least 3000 years ago, the Mesoamericans discovered how to process the beans to release the distinctive chocolate flavor, and drank it as a sacred beverage. Cacao is now grown all over the world, which annually consumes more than a million tons of processed chocolate. But cacao yields around the world are falling, because the pollination rate of commercially cultivated cacao plants is extremely low. Plantations are also plagued by diseases, expensive to run, and consume precious rain forest. Scientists have recently learned that cacao flowers are pollinated exclusively by midges--small, gnat-like flies--which prefer moist rain forest to sunny plantations. Eager to cultivate cacao more efficiently, farmers are now starting to grow cacao in small patches within the forest ecosystem, as the original Mesoamericans did.
|
|
|
|