Mars, Inc., the largest chocolate candies company in the world, has just begun a five-year research project to analyze the genome of one of nature's most storied and treasured gifts: the cocoa bean. What's more, the company solicited the help of another corporate giant, IBM, to help.

Intrigued? Or maybe just dumbfounded...

When we're in the midst of a food crisis -- rice costs are at an all-time high, simple foods like tomatoes are posing serious health risks, and the politics surrounding US beef has South Korea in a state of panic -- how on earth can anyone justify spending five years and untold millions researching a "food" that delights more than it sustains?

Simple: understanding the genome of cocoa will help produce better beans, more resilient to disease, and thereby benefit the estimated 6.5 million farmers who provide us with the raw material to make those delectable treats.

Of those farmers, around 70 percent are in Africa, a poverty- and disease-stricken continent that can use all the help it can get. If the project benefits those African cocoa farmers, their economies can only become stronger in return. That is, provided Mars and IBM share the wealth.

The prognosis on that is positive, too: the Mars company says it will make its research freely available via the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, which supports agricultural innovation for humanitarian and small-scale commercial projects.

[Image Credit: Andre Karwath on Wikimedia Commons]