Mars Inc have funded a $10 million genetics research project to analyse the genome of the cacao plant, to improve crop yields by learning about its ideal growing conditions, and resistance to crop diseases and drought. A team from the US Department of Agriculture will be working in conjunction with Mars and IBM's Computational Biology research group , and the findings of the research will be made public through the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA).

For more information on cocoa genome research project, see Mars, Inc and  Discovery News .