Scientists have warned chocolate may be extinct by 2050 due to climate change.

But help is at hand for those with a sweet tooth. Mars claims it can save the treat by creating genetically modified 'super chocolate'.

Cacao plants can only grow within approximately 20 degrees north and south of the equator - and they thrive under specific conditions such as high humidity and abundant rain.

Mars has now teamed up with researchers to make tweaks to the DNA using a technique called Crispr that could develop tougher plants that do not wilt or rot in warmer temperatures.

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Mars is teaming up with scientists to use gene-editing technology to save the world's cocao plants as experts warn chocolate could be extinct by as early as 2050 (stock image)

WHAT IS CRISPR-CAS9? Crispr-Cas9 is a tool for making precise edits in DNA, discovered in bacteria. The acronym stands for 'Clustered Regularly Inter-Spaced Palindromic Repeats'. The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut. By editing this tag, scientists are able to target specific regions of DNA and make precise cuts, wherever they like. This could be used to make cocoa plants better suited to their new environment by isolating the genes that make this plant so fragile and replacing them with ones that can withstand climate change. Advertisement

A temperature rise of just 2.1C over the next 30 years caused by global warming is currently set to wreak havoc for the plants, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As the mercury rises and squeezes more water out of soil and plants, scientists believe it is unlikely that rainfall will increase enough to offset the moisture loss.

That means cacao production areas are set to be pushed thousands of feet uphill into mountainous terrain which is carefully preserved for wildlife.

By 2050, experts predict chocolate-growing regions will be forced more than 1,000 feet uphill into mountainous terrain.

Officials in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana - which produce more than half of the world's chocolate - will face an agonising dilemma over whether to maintain the world's supply of chocolate or to save their dying ecosystems.

Scientists are already tweaking cocoa plant DNA to make the crops cheaper and more reliable.

However, the best use of this tecnology could be in the developing world where these plants are increasingly threatened by climate change, more pests and lack of water.

Mars has pledged $1 billion (£0.7 million) in September as part of an effort called 'Sustainability Generation'.

'There are obviously commitments the world is leaning into but, frankly, we don't think we're getting there fast enough collectively', Barry Parkin, Mars' chief sustainability officer, told Business Insider.

Jennifer Doudna, the UC Berkeley geneticist who created CRISPR is working with Mars to address the problem.

She is leading a research lab at UC Berkeley that is using an emerging genetic engineering technology called CRISPR-Cas 9.

Cacao production areas are set to be pushed thousands of feet uphill into mountainous terrain which is carefully preserved for wildlife by 2050

Crispr is a tool for making precise edits in DNA, discovered in bacteria. The acronym stands for 'Clustered Regularly Inter-Spaced Palindromic Repeats'. The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut

'CHOCOLATE DEFICIT' Last year experts predicted that the world was heading for a 'chocolate deficit' as shoppers in developing countries snapped up more of the sweet treat. The typical Western consumer eats an average of 286 chocolate bars a year - more if they are from Belgium, the research titled Destruction by Chocolate found. For 286 bars, producers need to plant 10 cacao trees to make the cocoa and the butter - the key ingredients in the production of chocolate. Since the 1990s, more than a billion people from China, Indonesia, India, Brazil and the former Soviet Union have entered the market for cocoa. Despite the increased demand, supply has not kept up and stockpiles of cocoa are said to be falling. Doug Hawkins, from London-based research firm Hardman Agribusiness, said production of cocoa is under strain as farming methods have not changed for hundreds of years. Advertisement

Crispr-Cas9 is a tool for making precise edits in DNA, discovered in bacteria. The acronym stands for 'Clustered Regularly Inter-Spaced Palindromic Repeats'.

The technique involves a DNA cutting enzyme and a small tag which tells the enzyme where to cut.

By editing this tag, scientists are able to target specific regions of DNA and make precise cuts, wherever they like.

This could be used to make cocao plants better suited to their new environment by isolating the genes that make this plant so fragile and replacing them with ones that can withstand climate change.

The team are also trying to tweak the DNA of cassava to make it produce less dangerous toxins in hotter weather.

Last year experts predicted that the world was heading for a 'chocolate deficit' as shoppers in developing countries snapped up more of the sweet treat.

The typical Western consumer eats an average of 286 chocolate bars a year - more if they are from Belgium, the research titled Destruction by Chocolate found.

For 286 bars, producers need to plant 10 cacao trees to make the cocoa and the butter - the key ingredients in the production of chocolate.

Since the 1990s, more than a billion people from China, Indonesia, India, Brazil and the former Soviet Union have entered the market for cocoa.

Cacao plants can only grow within approximately 20 degrees north and south of the Equator - and they thrive under specific conditions such as high humidity and abundant rain (stock)

Despite the increased demand, supply has not kept up and stockpiles of cocoa are said to be falling.

Doug Hawkins, from London-based research firm Hardman Agribusiness, said production of cocoa is under strain as farming methods have not changed for hundreds of years.

He said: 'Unlike other tree crops that have benefited from the development of modern, high yielding cultivars and crop management techniques to realise their genetic potential, more than 90 per cent of the global cocoa crop is produced by smallholders on subsistence farms with unimproved planting material.'

Some reports suggest cocoa growers in the world's top producer country, Ivory Coast, have resorted to illegally farming protected forests to meet demand - what Mr Hawkins calls 'destruction by chocolate'.

He said: 'All the indicators are that we could be looking at a chocolate deficit of 100,000 tonnes a year in the next few years.'