Chocolate

It was the end of a long, hard week of cleaning. My mind was full of words that I needed to write down. I was eager to leave my day job behind and get back to the world of writing. But first I needed chocolate. Lots of it. I popped into my local shop and scrunitised the shelves with horror. At the rate chocolate prices are going up I'll be needing a second mortage to meet my weekly fix. A small packet of Munchies in my local Spar shop now costs 85p! And please do not get me started on Curly Wurly's - years ago I swear they were a foot long (or is my memory playing tricks?) and now, well, you could swallow them in one bite. Well, I could.

I decided to look into this rising cost and what I found sent shivers up my spine. I don't care about the price of petrol (well, I do but, y'know it's not a life or death thing with me) I'm not that interested in inflation rates or housing prices. BUT when it comes to chocolate. Now that's SERIOUS!

According to the Guardian of November 2010 a single chocolate bar could cost £7!!!!
in fact, it already does -- if you buy posh chocolate. One thing is for sure, 60p bars will soon be a thing of the past.

The problem is the small holders growing cocoa beans get about 80p a day and there's no incentive to plant new crops when the old ones die off. It's time consuming (3-5 years) to grow a new crops. No one wants to wait around, do back-breaking work for minimal reward. It's easier to grown something else like bio-fuel crops. And with a life expectancy of just 56 years no wonder the younger generation are heading off to the city for better jobs. Plus, in some areas like Ghana and the Ivory Coast the soil is now so depleted of nutrients they can't grow anything. Production is seriously being decreased and the day is coming when the only cheap chocolate will be carob! Errww. Have you tasted Carob???

It's hard to inagine a world without chocolate? In anticipation of this earth-shattering outcome. I owe it to myself to eat as much chocolate as possible before it's all gone!