By Author, Dale Walters
Chocolate Crisis
"A lifetime or two of experience on the cacao trail is captured here.” - Mark J. Guiltinan, Pennsylvania State University
Chocolate is the centre of a massive global industry worth billions of dollars annually, yet its future in our modern world is currently under threat. In Chocolate Crisis, Dale Walters discusses the problems posed by plant diseases, pests, and climate change, looking at what these mean for the survival of the cacao tree…
My Story
I am Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). Before I retired in 2016, I was leader of the Crop Protection research team at SRUC’s campus in Edinburgh. My research interests included induced resistance to plant pathogens, novel approaches to plant disease control, and plant-pathogen interactions. For 35 years I taught Plant Biotic Interactions, Plant Pathology and Plant Responses to Stress, to final year undergraduates.
I have written two textbooks (Plant Defense: warding off attack by pathogens, herbivores, and parasitic plants and Physiological Responses of Plants to Attack ) and edited three others (Induced Resistance for Plant Defense, Disease Control in Crops, and Molecular Biology in Crop Protection). I have also written a popular science book – Fortress Plant: how to survive when everything wants to eat you, published by Oxford University Press in 2017. My latest popular science book, Chocolate Crisis: Climate Change and Other Threats to the Future of Cacao, was published by University Press of Florida on 5 January 2021.
Dale Walters
Botanist & Writer
My Books
“Chocolate Crisis covers a vast range of topics about the cacao tree, the farmers that grow it, the challenges they face, and its role in history and in the world economy. A lifetime or two of experience on the cacao trail is captured here.”
- Mark J. Guiltinan, Pennsylvania State University