FARM FOR CHOCOLATE INSTEAD OF COCA?

The companies that bring you M&Ms and Kisses have a sticky problem:
worldwide demand for chocolate is outstripping supply.

But the people who used to bring you coca - the raw material for cocaine -
might offer a sweet solution: replacing the drug shrub with the cacao tree.

Cacao instead of coca?

The prospect is so delicious that top American candy executives and U.S.
officials conferred with diplomats from Peru last week about creating a
``chocolate strategy'' for the next century.

Representatives from Hershey and M&M/Mars approached officials in
Washington with an industry-wide concern: the supply of chocolate is
dwindling as new markets boom in eastern Europe and China, and as cacao
trees in Africa and Latin America fall victim to pests, disease and
deforestation.

Researchers say the temperamental cacao tree needs small-scale farmers to
tend it lovingly in small shady patches, because disease strikes hardest on
huge plantations.

And Peru, as it turns out, is fertile ground. Two years of fierce anti-drug
efforts there have wiped out 40 per cent of the coca in production and left
peasants desperate for a new cash crop.

With the help of U.S. relief and anti-drug officials, the chocolate
companies are planning to stage workshops in Peru in October on how to grow
cacao and might cough up money at an international conference in November
to launch the project. It would take years to establish the cacao farms.

The prospect excites Peruvian diplomat Maria Teresa Hart.

``This is all new,'' she said. ``But we're very excited.''

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski