Food and Farming
The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024
In the first `100 days of 2024 we will explore 100 climate solutions that may “empower you to evaluate, engage, and act” to address on-going climate change as an individual on your terms.
Chocolate passions confront climate change. Here we go. I enjoy dark, rich chocolate. This one is hitting a bit close to home.
Heidi describes cacao trees as Goldilocks – “a bit fussy about their climate setting”. Production farming requires a consistent set of environmental conditions that are mostly found about 1300 miles on either side of the equator. Most of our chocolate comes from farms in West Africa (Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana), Indonesia, South America, India, and Hawaii.
According to advocates for sustainable cocoa production “cocoa farmers are already seeing the impacts of climate change and if we don’t take action, current cocoa-producing regions may no longer be suitable for cocoa production in the next 30 years”. They cite deforestation and climate change as a main driver for changes in the industry. Cacao trees are increasingly stressed, especially by drier conditions that lower yields. It is likely that continuing production will required converting land that is, for example, at a higher altitude with similar humidity, temperature, and rainfall.
The focus for advocacy groups is on educating farmers to utilize modern techniques and data driven decision making, researching conservation methods, and developing new climate tolerant cacao varieties, for instance leveraging wild cacao varieties that may be more drought tolerant.
NOAA has an informative site that lays out the challenges and opportunities for the industry to evolve in the face of a changing climate. They lead with an apt quote that highlights the challenges of addressing the consumer’s passion for good chocolate:
“Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate…because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the color and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favor of dirt.” Sandra Boynton in CHOCOLATE: The Consuming Passion.
You can take action now through your choice of chocolate brands, shopping and consuming wisely, and reducing waste (picture the candy collected then thrown out at Halloween). Our local grocery store is highlighting sustainable brands, some of which are on the list from LeafScore with Beyond Good standing out.
For your research you can start with Mighty Earth that tracks the cocoa industry and publishes their Chocolate Egg Scorecard for the sustainability performance of chocolate companies. Popular “Big Chocolate” companies like Nestlé, Hershey’s, and Mars were awarded a yellow chocolate bunny because they are “starting to implement good policies”. [They really don’t like Storck (manufacturer of Werther’s, Toffifay, Merci), awarding them a Rotten Egg two years in a row].
David Reay explores more climate aspects of our food in his 2019 book Climate-Smart Food, which can be downloaded for free. Climate-smart food is described and detailed “whereby climate resilience and productivity are increased while greenhouse gas emissions are simultaneously reduced”. Chapter 6 is on chocolate.
Next Up: Climate Action in 2024 – Day 37: Imbibe With Climate in Mind
Howard Creel
#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com