Quick Take — Are we ready for a future without chocolate? The answer (perhaps) lies in carob

Chocolate – a universal symbol of comfort, pleasure and celebration – is about to become a luxury good [we have been saying this for years]. This is not a provocation: it is a snapshot of a market on the alert, overwhelmed by unprecedented price increases. In 2024, the cost of cocoa went up 300% wholesale. And the reasons go far beyond the law of supply and demand.
Plantations in West Africa, where most of the world’s cocoa comes from, are increasingly suffering from climate change. High temperatures, erratic rainfall and increasingly difficult biodiversity management are putting the very survival of cacao trees at risk. To this is added an even more worrying phenomenon: some farmers in Ghana are abandoning cocoa to engage in illegal gold mining, a more profitable and immediate activity. The result is a hole in the market: a global shortage of about 500,000 tonnes of cocoa in 2024. A deep crack, which has prompted several companies to ask: can we imagine a future without chocolate – or, rather, without cocoa?

Read more in Il Gambero Rosso

Quick Take — Trump’s new tariffs could send US egg prices soaring due to supply shortages

US President Donald Trump ‘s new tariffs could be applied to imported eggs to alleviate supply shortages, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Thursday, a move that industry experts say could boost prices just as they have begun to fall from historic highs

And shortages in France: ‘Tension increased when images of empty shelves in the US and record high prices were filmed in France,’ says Loic Coulombel, vice-president of the National Egg Promotion Committee (CNPO)

Read US: bird flu drives up egg prices

Why there will be a water crisis in Sicily even if it has rained for months

In many municipalities, water is already rationed. And we are still in the low season, as far as tourism is concerned, with Sicily being taken by storm for the holidays and the long bridge between Easter and the First of May, and with Agrigento, the Italian Capital of Culture 2025 which is expected to triple its number of presences. But with what water, if images of luxury B&Bs with water bins at the entrance for visitors and instructions in three languages on how to ‘wash up’ were already doing the rounds on the web last year?

Quick Take — Wine with, without alcohol and winetours

On alcohol-free wine, the EU goes against the positions of Coldiretti (opposed to alcohol-free wine perhaps because its membership base does not like it? Or because progress is against it, as in the case of cultivated meat?).

On the phrase – see below – by Roberta Garibaldi ‘The drop in consumption is fought with winetours to producers’ homes’ we are very doubtful: those who do not consume do not go to the cellar.

Why Trump won. And what he stands to lose from now on

Competition from China contributed to Trump’s assertion. It had a very strong negative impact on employment in some regions, particularly in the south, where industries requiring low-skilled labour were concentrated. The unemployed vote was intercepted by Trump. With isolationism, the Trump administration will undoubtedly manage the decline of the United States . With tariffs and inflation Trump ‘plays with fire’

Quick Take — Agriculture: organic on its knees

The alarm from the Matera hills: unsustainable increase in production costs. And the boar emergency worsens RaiNews The organic situation is very well explained in the article below: we are big organic farmers but we buy very little of it because it is very expensive(many intermediary companies, not producers. Some are on ‘everyone’s lips’ because of recent scandals: Bioera and Ki.Group, for example).

Drafted 13 March, updated 18 March 2025