Posted on 11/17/2014 10:38:15 AM PST by Bettyprob
There's no easy way to say this: You're eating too much chocolate, all of you. And it's getting so out of hand that the world could be headed towards a potentially disastrous scenario if it doesn't stop.
Those are, roughly speaking, the words of two huge chocolate makers, Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut. And there's some data to back them up.
Chocolate deficits, whereby farmers produce less cocoa than the world eats, are becoming the norm. Already, we are in the midst of what could be the longest streak of consecutive chocolate deficits in more than 50 years. It also looks like deficits aren't just carrying over from year-to-year—the industry expects them to grow. Last year, the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. By 2020, the two chocolate-makers warn that that number could swell to 1 million metric tons, a more than 14-fold increase; by 2030, they think the deficit could reach 2 million metric tons.
The problem is, for one, a supply issue. Dry weather in West Africa (specifically in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, where more than 70 percent of the world's cocoa is produced) has greatly decreased production in the region. A nasty fungal disease known as frosty pod hasn't helped either. The International Cocoa Organization estimates it has wiped out between 30 percent and 40 percent of global coca production. Because of all this, cocoa farming has proven a particularly tough business, and many farmers have shifted to more profitable crops, like corn, as a result.
Then there's the world's insatiable appetite for chocolate. China's growing love for the stuff is of particular concern. The Chinese are buying more and more chocolate each year. Still, they only consume per capita about 5 percent of what the average Western European eats.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Well, I was going to start growing tobacco in the back yard just to piss-off Lefties.
Oh no!
Obama is going to have to increase our chocolate rations from 30g per person per month to 20g.
The minimum for calling it ‘chocolate’ is 10%. So if the price doubled , I assume the actual chocolate bar would only go up 10%.
Instead of candy bars, I just buy bars or baker’s chocolate, which has a higher chocolate content, and isn’t nearly as sweet. So I’d be looking at a much bigger price increase.
Clearly what is needed is for the federal government to set up a “strategic cocoa reserve” to mitigate the crisis.
Time for Obama to appoint a ‘Cocoa Czar’... Maybe establish it as a new cabinet position.
With any luck, maybe Jonathan Gruber will be available for that position.
A stock market guy used to write under the pen name “Adam Smith”. In his book “The Money Game” he had a chapter called “The Chocolate Caper” about trying to make money on cocoa futures.
Yep, it’s about that time again: slow news day, so time to re-recycle one of the MSM’s favorite phony doomsday stories:
1. The world’s running out of chocolate.
2. The world’s running out of coffee.
3. Sunspots will cause the world to grind to a halt.
4. A killer computer virus is killing all the PCs.
5. The honey bees are all dying and the food crops will all fail from lack of pollination.
Have I missed anything important? (And global warming and “climate change” don’t count because those never leave the news in the first place.)
Have they tried fracking for it? We will all die without chocolate.
Sooooo .... cocoa futures?
Hard-working American men and women have a RIGHT to chocolate. We must make sure that all Americans have equal access to chocolate at prices that won’t bust the budgets of these hard-working American men and women who are working so hard.
That is why I am today proposing legislation that will level the playing field for these hard-working American chocolate consumers. And, in order to make sure that greedy chocolate producers do not engage in market manipulation or predatory pricing, I am creating a new federal agency: the Department of Chocolate Regulation And Pricing, just to show that I give a C.R.A.P.
now THIS is SHTF material !!!
No chocolate. No bacon. What’s the point of humanity continuing?
Frackolate!
Mrs. Scoutmaster will be inconsolable when I show her this. I don’t even think guacamole will help.
Every year around the holidays, they say the same thing. It’s just an excuse to raise the price and to get people to stock up.
Chocolate famine, PING!
“ This is not a Drill!”
CHOCOLATE SHORTAGE IS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING....
THE HORROR!!!
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