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CHOCOLATE LOVERS TAKE heart: a steamy greenhouse near London is helping to ensure that cocoa crops globally remain disease-free and bountiful.
On a winter morning, the temperature is a chilly eight degrees Celsius but inside the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre (ICQC), which simulates tropical conditions, the air is a balmy 23 degrees.
“Cocoa plants are generally quite difficult plants to grow,” said Heather Lake, a technician at the newly-revamped centre, which is funded half by the British chocolate industry and half by the US government.
“They don’t like too much sunlight, they don’t like too much shade. It’s quite difficult to get the climate correct,” she said at the facility, which is hosted by the University of Reading.
Situated in the village of Arborfield, west of London, the ICQC boasts 0,760 square feet of greenhouse space and 400 cocoa plant varieties.
The centre’s aim is to reduce the amount of disease affecting cocoa plants by quarantining them before sharing them with different countries to produce new, more resistant varieties.
The plants are often collected in the wild on expeditions to the tropics on which researchers collect cuttings or seeds from disease-free samples.
At a time when changing tastes in emerging economies like China and India are fuelling global demand for chocolate, the centre acts as a vital resource for producer countries when pests or droughts strike crops.
“That’s where we come into play,” said Andrew Daymond, manager of the ICQC, which was set up 30 years ago. “We are the main hub for international movements of cocoa plants.”
Keeping chocolate affordable
Cocoa originates from South America but west Africa now dominates production, accounting for 73%of global output.
Such a heavy concentration of production in one region makes it vulnerable to shocks.
Prices leapt to almost €3,000 a tonne in September amid fears that the Ebola crisis in west Africa could affect cocoa supplies.
Both Ivory Coast and Ghana, however, who account for most cocoa output, have so far been spared by the outbreak.
Cocoa prices later fell back again but still rose 15% in 2014.
There is also the potential threat to the industry from plant diseases, which in west Africa can mean up to 30 percent of the annual harvest is lost.
“In each cocoa-growing country, they face particular challenges to do with pest and diseases, low yield potential of planted materials, extreme weather events,” Daymond said.
“The basic objective of the project is to allow safe movement of cocoa plants from one part of the world to another.”
In Britain, which has no endemic pests or diseases affecting cocoa, the centre can grow resistant varieties before dispatching them around the world, though few people would recognise these as cocoa trees.
“When we do an export, we send the small branches off a tree,” Lake said. “We then remove all the leaves and we just send a stick.”
Daymond explained that producer countries can then “establish a plant that is genetically identical to the plant that they received the cutting from”.
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Sad that his tenure ended this way, but there seems to be a culture of non corporate compliance & lack of proper accountability within Goal. For example, John O’Shea refused to publish his salary details. The company relies on public donations and that the public have a right to know how there money is being spent.
We all know what sorted out this dispute, money, and probably lots of it.
Great business to be in that Charity lark, they are falling over each other in Africa enshrining the many of the people into culture of poverty. They would be better off lobby Politicians across Europe to help Africa economically which is the only meaningful solution. Ah well the important thing is that John the professional giver gets “paid” , of course this will be partially funded by tax payer , wonder how much he will donate to Charity , maybe his daughter will tell us , apparently she wants to take over the family business , I mean Charity now !
I wonder if his daughter Lisa O’Shea will get his job ? Also, she should stop promoting her name in the radio ads for Goal – it’s a waste of valuable money & promotes her own career.
Too many chiefs not enough charity!!!
If only there was a way to cut out the middleman when giving to charity
No doubting the great work he did and he will always have a great legacy, but I’d love to see how much he earned since 1977.
A lot of money, lived the high life while being an arrogant rude man on top of it.
He earned silly amounts of money, what was it like €400,000 a year or something? How is that a charity, it’s more like a scam to me
Popsicle.
Where did you get this 400k a year figure from? Can you back it up or is it something you hope is true so you can discredit the man.
Well Neil. Are you in the charity business yourself?
Everybody’s money is nobody’s money so just like the civil service they get to pay themselves what they think they are worth probably along with unvouched expenses
Retirement my arse, no doubt a tidy little financial arrangement for this chap who always bothered me with his approach, in your face attitude. Perhaps the truth will surface one day. Nice pension to look forward to given the outrageous salary he was on and before the bleeding hearts have a moan, it was the public who donated to the destitute as Mr O Shea described Goals target audience.
A score draw!
There is clearly an urgent need for transparency, regarding senior executives pay within all charities. The publics trust is being severely threatened, by repeated stories of grossly overpaid charity workers. If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t it recently reported that one of Rehab’s senior executives was earning close to a quarter of a million?. How could this be?. What justification could there possibly be for plundering a charity of its financial resources to this unmelodic tune?. I don’t smell a rat as such. It’s much more like the smell of a new car, or, the scent of expensive Egyptian cotton sheets, or maybe the smell of first class air travel, or luxurious hotels, or fine dining, or the taste of fine wine?. I wouldn’t know, because I am unfamiliar with these scents. My guess is, that I am smelling the increasingly familiar stench of hypocracy and usury. I should add that in no way do I mean my comments to be directed at the personality mentioned in the above article. I do however, suspect that there are some within these organisations that are attracted to overpaid positions, not because of charitable concern, but rather because of personal greed. And possibly also because of a serious and callous personality disorder.
Well Popsicle ,he gave to the poor unlike the last couple of taoisigh who took from the poor and still are and for what 250 k per annum . He deserved it he set it up
I know you shouldn’t judge book by its cover, but he doesn’t even look like a charity person to me lol. By the way, does anybody know what is the deal with those charity people stopping you for a chat in the city centre? Sometimes they are more pushy than street merchandisers in Egypt. I know its their job so I’m never rude to them, but its seriously annoying at times.
And what does a charitable person look like then?
There is alot of speculation here about this man living the high life.
Can we have some of the statements backed up by facts. That seems reasonable doesn’t it?
You may well be right Gerard. I remember during the early eighties, a friend of mine was selling raffle tickets, for a pound, of which, she got twenty per cent and the rest went to the owner of the charity. During that period, he was only obliged to hand over one per cent of his “earnings”.to the charity. That meant that seventy nine per cent went into his pocket. The charity got one per cent. The sellers got twenty per cent. Because of the charitable status, tax was only paid on the one per cent. Negligible. To refer back to your point, if a charity was modestly successful and earned a million, then two hundred grand would not have to be accounted for. This is the rich and ripe plucking ground for the socially adept psychopath. They live for that twenty per cent that does not have to be accounted for. While doing so, they will destroy everybody and everything that gets in their way, without remorse, without conscience.
Please somebody correct me if I’m wrong but I think I once heard that once you are running a legal charity you are only obliged to hand over 80% for charity causes, the rest you get to keep. Like I said, please correct me if I’m wrong
This article claims he earned 98k a year:
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/how-much-does-giving-really-cost-2161786.html
Any registered charity should be forced to have full disclosure of all their accounts. All salaries, expenses etc should be public.
Read half this article before I realised it wasn’t John O’ Shea the footballer, how disappointed I was :)
Or perhaps if he wasn’t paying himself as much as we thought we would be very disappointed as we wouldn’t be able to point score.
Facts please.
What caused all the deformities in children around the Chernobyl area then William?..
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