Candy company Mars teams up with IBM to analyze chocolate's DNA

WASHINGTON — To save chocolate lovers from the agony of a potential candy bar shortage, Virginia-based Mars is investing $10 million in a five-year project to develop cacao trees that fight drought, disease and poor harvests.

The candy giant will announce today that it is partnering with IBM and the Department of Agriculture to sequence and analyze the entire cocoa genome.

The team will be identifying the characteristics that make a better cacao tree. Then they plan to breed the genetically superior specimens to battle the foes that have shrunk the number of beans to make chocolate over the years.

"We have the ability as a private company to take charge of future," said Howard-Yana Shapiro, global director of plant science for Mars.

Unlocking the secrets of the genome, and eliminating the guesswork in traditional breeding, could bring economic stability to the 6.5 million small family cocoa farmers around the world and help fend off the environmental assaults that inflict $700 million to $800 million in damages each year, Shapiro said.

Mars plans to make the research results free and accessible.

Although chocolate seems ubiquitous, the cocoa on which it depends is a volatile crop. West Africa, which produces 70 percent of the world's cocoa, has been hammered by bad weather.

Decades ago, Brazil was a top exporter. Then a fungus known as witches' broom attacked cacao trees, devastating the industry. In the past year, cocoa prices have risen almost 50 percent as global supply of the beans has shrunk.

Those kind of economics have focused scientific attention on the cacao plant. Scientists expect it will take about a year to generate cocoa's raw DNA. The cocoa genome consists of about 500 million base pairs, whereas the human genome is made up of 3 billion base pairs.

Then it's up to three IBM scientists to analyze this data and look for patterns.

"We'll have the full toolbox to use as opposed to the pocket full of tools we have now," Shapiro said.

And chocolate lovers will have the powers of science on their side.