"The Race to Save the World's Chocolate"

"Blame climate change. Or pestilence. Or China's Westernizing taste in candy. Blame, perhaps, Ebola. Regardless, the world is running out of chocolate.

In 2013, the world consumed about 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. And now, Mars, Inc. and Barry Callebaut—two of the world's biggest manufacturers of chocolate goods—are warning that by 2020, that consumption-over-production number could increase to 1 million metric tons (a fourteen-fold bump). 'Chocolate deficits, whereby farmers produce less cocoa than the world eats, are becoming the norm,' The Washington Post reported. We are in the midst of what may be 'the longest streak of consecutive chocolate deficits in more than 50 years' and analysts say it's only going to get worse."

Megan Garber reports for Mother Jones November 19, 2014.