Yum! Chocolate Genome A $17 billion industry in the US,
chocolate tantalizes our taste buds, but it can easily fall prey
to agricultural disaster. Fungal disease alone can wipe out 80
percent of a crop of cacao trees. Fear not, chocolate
lovers—help is on the way! Last week, scientists and rival candy
bar companies announced the sequencing of the cacao tree genome.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes that the sequencing
will help build stronger trees, better equipped to resist
droughts, diseases, and pests that threaten this vital (and
delicious) agricultural crop. The Mars and Hershey companies
both led teams of cacao sequencers, in hopes that understanding
the genome will also lead to tastier and healthier chocolate.
Chocolate comes from the cacao tree, Theobroma (meaning “food of
the gods”) cacao. The tree seeds are processed into cocoa beans
that are the source of cocoa, cocoa butter and chocolate. Num!
Through the 1980s, Brazil supplied most of the world’s cocoa,
but a fungus decimated the crops. To