Chocolate lovers like taste of Mars Cocoa Genome Project

By William Atkins
Thursday, 26 June 2008 22:58

Science - Biology

The cocoa tree is scientifically called Theobroma cacao.

The cacao plant is a small evergreen tree in the family Sterculiaceae (or Malvaceae). It was originally found in the tropical areas of the Americas. Its seeds are used to make cocoa and chocolate.

As of 2005, the largest producers of cocoa are: Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

By mapping the DNA of the cocoa tree, the team hopes to strength the $5 billion cocoa market. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the double helix stand of substance that carries an organism’s genetic information.

The Mars company issued the following statement, "Sequencing the cocoa genome is a significant scientific step that will allow more directed breeding of cocoa plants and perhaps even enhance the quality of cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate," privately held Mars said in a statement. The collaboration will enable farmers to plant better quality cocoa and, more importantly, help create healthier, stronger cocoa crops with higher yields, pest and disease resistance, and increased water and nutrient use efficiency.” [Reuters: “Sweet deal: Companies and U.S. team up to map cocoa DNA ”]

For instance, the Mars-IBM-USDA team has already announced that new strains of cocoa trees can be developed from the project so that the time of maturity of such trees can be about eighteen months, rather than five to seven years with today’s trees.

The project is also expected to produce various strains of cocoa trees that grow best in specific regions of the world.

Approximately 6.5 million cocoa farmers will benefit from the advances learned from this project. Nearly three-quarters of the cocoa crop is located in Africa.

Mars, Inc. is providing approximately $10 million for the project. As the genome project progresses, information will be updated on The Public Intellectual Property Resource For Agricultural (PIPRA) website.

As the PIPRA website states, it is “an non-profit initiative striving to make it easy for developing countries to access new agricultural technologies.”

An IBM video called “IBM, MARS, USDA-ARS to Jointly Study the Cocoa Genome” is available at YouTube.