(2015·山东潍坊市高三一模)Can you imagine a world without chocolate？It’s not something I’d like to do，so I was relieved to read that there’s a university with a programme to safeguard the future of chocolate!
The University of Reading，in England，has just opened a new clearing house for all the world’s new cocoa varieties.They must be quarantined (进行检疫) before they can be grown.Why？Cocoa production hit a record high of 4.4 million tons last year but about 30% of the precious crop is regularly lost to pests and diseases.Now we don’t want that，do we?
Demand for chocolate has been increasing faster than the world supply of cocoa and researchers think that new varieties are key to solving this problem.
The University of Reading has been protecting the quality of the new crop since 1985，after it took over the task from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew，London.And it has improved its facilities.The leader of the institution’s cocoa project，Professor Paul Hadley，says，“One of the main issues concerning cocoa improvement is the supply of reliably clean，healthy，interesting cocoa material.”
