--- title: #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage | TIME description: And China's rising appetite for chocolate is contributing, too. canonical: https://time.com/video/yqMmGVD3/ og:title: #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage og:description: And China's rising appetite for chocolate is contributing, too. og:url: https://time.com/video/yqMmGVD3/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/yqMmGVD3/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage twitter:description: And China's rising appetite for chocolate is contributing, too. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/yqMmGVD3/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage [Watch (HLS stream): #TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yqMmGVD3.m3u8) (1:30)  _Published 2014-11-18. And China's rising appetite for chocolate is contributing, too._ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:31 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [#TheBrief: The Most Important Part About the U.S. China Climate Deal](/video/jMWCgXRJ/) ### #TheBrief: The Most Important Part About the U.S. China Climate Deal [#TheBrief: Assisted Suicide After the Age of Kevorkian](/video/1W2ZR0Gu/) ### #TheBrief: Assisted Suicide After the Age of Kevorkian [#TheBrief: Watch How the CDC is Changing Its Ebola Protocol](/video/ftEB8sve/) ### #TheBrief: Watch How the CDC is Changing Its Ebola Protocol --- ## Transcript We're eating more chocolate than ever and cocoa bean farmers can't keep up. So what does that mean for the world's candy fiends? I'm Ben Goldberger and this is your brief. The world's largest chocolate producers just issued a warning about shortages. That happens occasionally with any crop. But this one comes at a particularly bad time. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, oh, and I pick you. More than 70 % of the worlds cocoa beans are produced in just two countries, Ghana and the Ivory Coast. And they are both currently experiencing extreme drought. [ MUSIC ] As a result, farmers are starting to leave the cocoa fields to grow more profitable crops like corn. And the Ebola epidemic has forced Ghana and the Ivory Coast to barricade their borders from neighboring Liberia and Guinea, who's migrant workers help produce chocolate. As if that's not enough, a fungal disease has killed 30 to 40 percent of the cocoa trees. It's especially bad timing for supply to be down. Cuz demand for chocolate is way up. China's consumption has more than doubled in the last decade. And analysts expect that Brazil and India's economic growth will also increase their appetite for chocolate. And we're likely to see the repercussions here at home, where chocolate prices are expected to rise as much as 14 % by next year. That's one reason why scientists are trying to develop super cocoa trees. These that produce seven times more beans as traditional trees. The only problem they most likely won't taste as sweet. I'm Ben Goldberger and you've been briefed. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"#TheBrief: How Ebola and Fungus May Speed Up the Chocolate Shortage","description":"And China's rising appetite for chocolate is contributing, too.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/yqMmGVD3/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-11-18T17:30:43.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yqMmGVD3.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/yqMmGVD3/","duration":"PT1M30S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/yqMmGVD3/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```