Conservation Of Cocoa Germplasm

EDM number 1033 in 1994-95, proposed by Hugh Bayley on 26/04/1995.

That this House notes that the clearing of the rain forest in the Amazon basin is destroying the natural habitat of wild cocoa from which wild cocoa genes are drawn constantly to breed with commercial varieties of cocoa to make the trees more resistant to disease and to improve their quality and yield; further notes that the sale of the International Cocoa Organisation's buffer stock of cocoa beans, built up from the proceeds of taxes on cocoa imports to the United Kingdom and other countries, will generate a payment of around $6 million to the Treasury in respect of the United Kingdom's share of the buffer stock; applauds the German Government's decision to establish a trust fund to administer its $20 billion refund from the sale of the buffer stock; and calls on the United Kingdom Government to set up a similar trust fund to be spent on conserving cocoa germplasm at the international cocoa genebanks in Trinidad and Costa Rica, and for scientific research at United Kingdom institutes such as the International Cocoa Germplasm Database and the International Cocoa quarantine Station at the University of Reading and the Scottish Crop Research Institute.

This motion has been signed by a total of 46 MPs.