“Everybody realizes we need more supply because the demand is growing,” said Ruud Engbers, president director of Mars Symbioscience Indonesia, a unit of privately owned Mars Inc, one of the world’s leading food manufacturers, which turns out Snickers and Twix candy bars. In the last five years, the country’s grinding capacity has doubled to reach around 400,000 metric tons (440,925 tons) this year, making it Asia’s largest after Malaysia. To meet the growing appetite for chocolate in Asia, fed by rising incomes and growing populations, multinational firms such as Cargill and Barry Callebaut, the world’s top chocolate maker, have built grinding projects in Indonesia. Ratios, an indicator of demand, have rallied more than 40 percent since January in Asia, boosted by year-end festive demand and a drop in grindings in Europe that curbed supply of cocoa butter, which makes chocolate melt in the mouth. The main growing island of Sulawesi, where Nurhaedah works for a trading firm based in Singapore, is the center of a three-year-old effort to boost cocoa output to 600,000 metric tons (661,387 tons) by 2013, to meet demand from grinders in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia.Īs top cocoa grower Ivory Coast struggles to stamp out an outbreak of fungal disease in the face of bad weather, problems in Indonesia and the likelihood of a disruptive El Nino weather pattern could leave the global market with a deficit of around 40,000 metric tons (44,092 tons) in the current crop year, driving prices higher. Many trees have fallen down and when you pull them up, it’s obvious they don’t have taproots.”įarmers’ disappointment at the outcome of the three-year campaign that aimed at increasing cocoa output to offset tight supplies and satisfy rising demand is ironically driving some to cultivate palm oil, which brings in more money for less work. “I don’t think anyone has told us what went wrong. “Farmers are complaining the beans are so small they look like roasted peanuts,” said Nurhaedah, as her deft fingers sought out the bigger beans whose size indicated better quality. REUTERS/Yusuf AhmadĪ $350-million campaign to boost cocoa yields in Indonesia, the world’s third largest producer of the commodity, is turning sour as farmers send streams of poor-quality beans plucked from the defective trees to a collecting center Nurhaedah runs. It has also been featured in numerous films and television shows, including “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Chicago Fire.” In 2014, Time magazine even named it one of the “World’s 100 Greatest Places.A farmer stands near cocoa fruit in a cocoa plantation in Pinrang district in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province September 20, 2012. Since its completion, The Bean has become one of Chicago’s most popular tourist attractions, with over 1 million visitors each year. Its surface reflects the city’s skyline and the sky above. Weighing 110 tons and measuring 66 feet long by 33 feet high, The Bean is made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together. The Cloud Gate, more commonly known as “The Bean,” is a public sculpture located in Chicago’s Millennium Park. How the Chicago Bean Became a Global Icon Visitors are able to walk underneath the bean-shaped structure, and it has become one of the most popular selfie spots in the city.Īlthough it was not originally intended to be a photo opportunity, the Bean has become one of Chicago’s most iconic landmarks. The sculpture, also known as “The Cloud Gate,” was installed in Millennium Park in 2006.ĭesigned by British artist Anish Kapoor, the sculpture’s mirrored surface reflects Chicago’s skyline and the park below. The original purpose of the Chicago Bean was to be a part of the city’s contemporary art scene.
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