Largest producer of cocoa beans

Africa’s Côte d'Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans, the primary ingredient in chocolate. The country’s farmers generated 1.6 million tonnes (1.76 million tons) of cocoa beans in 2010, which accounted for 44 per cent of the total global cocoa production. Despite originating in South America, most of the world’s cocoa beans are now grown in Africa. It takes a cocoa plant seven months to develop fully and ripen – this is the same as the gestation periods for the aardvark, the porcupine and the white-tailed deer.