According to Business Insider, researchers from the University of California are now working with the Mars Company to save the cacao plant from disappearing. Warmer temperatures and drier weather conditions will soon threaten the world's cacao plants.
Cacao can only grow within a narrow strip of rain forested land, about 20 degrees north and south of the equator, where temperature, rain and humidity are relatively constant year round.
Over half of the world's chocolate currently comes from two West African countries. Rising temperatures over the next few decades will make those regions unsuitable to grow cacao.
Scientists are now using a technology to modify cacao plant DNA to see if it can be made to survive in different climates.
