Money doesn’t grow on trees, not in this economy. But chocolate
does and Easter, Passover, and American Chocolate Week can be
financially rewarding seasons for cocoa farmers and chocolate
stock owners. The thing is, Cocoa farmers can’t be found in the
U.S. because the fruit tree that produces the cocoa bean, the
cacao tree, only grows in remote tropical regions in Central and
South America, Southeast Asia and West Africa. In fact,
chocolate is a prime crop in the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
where 40 percent of the world’s chocolate is produced. West
Africa may as well be called the Milky Way because the region
has about 1.5 million chocolate farms. The average cocoa farm in
West Africa is seven to ten acres. Typical cocoa farming
families in West Africa average eight people. It certainly feels
good to know that Africa’s a natural resource for one of the
richest foods the world and not just its mineral diamonds,
silver, copper and gold. Chocolate is addictive. This is no
longer a Snopes research question. Univ