Who Gave Mars The Right... to edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on Earth?

Because that’s the actual question. Cocoa cross-pollinates for 40 years. Smallholders in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire plant seeds from neighboring trees. Once edited pollen is in the regional gene pool, there’s no recall mechanism.

Ghana exempts most CRISPR edits from regulation. Côte d’Ivoire has a biosafety law but no functioning regulator. So in the two countries that grow most of the world’s cocoa, the answer is either “this is exempt” or “nobody’s home.”

This is Part 3 of 4 in a series.