Seventy percent of the world's cocoa supply originates in West Africa, though the region's largest producers of the commodity, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, have thus far not experienced an outbreak of the Ebola virus.

If weather and diseases concerns weren’t enough for the upcoming cocoa bean harvest in the Ivory Coast, then the Ebola epidemic surely provides a real what-if fear — one that’s sending the price of cocoa beans soaring.

“These results demonstrate how we have been able to improve cocoa yields and quality, as well as the livelihoods of the farmers and their communities,“ says Grow Cocoa’s program director, Kevin Wilkins.

When Yao N'Dri Pasca was having a problem with black pod disease on his cocoa farm, he turned to pesticides.

With funding from cocoa producer Cargill, Inc., Ivory Coast’s Ministry of Family, Women and Children officially opened an orphanage in Soubre, Ivory Coast Monday that could help up to 60 needy children.