The World Needs More

Cocoa

mHE considered view of a con- X ference of cocoa interests re cently held in London was that the world demand for the product is increasing and, in a few years, should reach an annual consump

tion of a million tons. Present world consumption is 750,000 tons.

This is good news in the South Pacific, where large areas of cocoa have been planted up since the end of the war. As far as this is con cerned, however, the situation may be levelled out by the fact that science hopes soon to have beaten swollen-shoot disease which has seriously affected production in West Africa in recent years.

West African cocoa is considered to be far superior to that produced in New Guinea, for example.