“In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar," says John Mason, executive director and founder of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRCCommunities and the environment are also at stake.

Chocolate yields are declining all across West Africa, where two thirds of the world's supply is grown, as soils are degraded and the area able to support the crop retreats. Cocoa is naturally a rainforest plant that grows in shady conditions surrounded by a high biodiversity, but recently hybrid varieties have been grown on cleared land as mono-cultures and in full sun. While this will give higher short term yields, the soil quickly becomes degraded and the lifespan of plants can be cut from 75 or 100 years, to 30 or less. When the trees die and the land is exhausted the farmers must move on and clear more rainforest to plant cocoa. The looming decline of West African cocoa is not only a problem for farmers and chocolate producers - Cadbury sources 100 percent of the beans they use for UK chocolate production from Ghana - environmentalists are increasingly concerned about the destruction of the rainforest for short-term gain.