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This issue covers discoveries and ventures that could improve cocoa productivity. We begin with a study redrawing the cocoa tree, dividing Forastero into seven new groups or ‘clusters’. It has long been known that cocoa in the Amazon basin contained as-yet untapped cocoa diversity, but this study has delimited different foci of diversity, information that can help improve management and exploitation of germplasm for breeding. Next we have a report on Nigeria’s programme to rejuvenate its cocoa industry; a multi-institutional initiative is helping farmers rehabilitate cocoa on their farms, while the farmers have participated in identifying important constraints to this. We follow this with a report on a new CATIE-led project. As cocoa farming, poverty reduction and conservation are closely linked in Central America, the project is working with cocoa farmer organizations in six countries to improve competitivity of cocoa production and environmental services. The causal agent of witches’ broom received a new name not long ago (Moniliophthora perniciosa), and we highlight a recent review summarizing what else is new with this long-standing cocoa scourge and efforts to combat it, identifying also where research is most needed. We include a note on an excellent farmer training manual for Papua New Guinea, which is useful practically for farmers and could inspire production of similar aids elsewhere. There is news on COPAL’s International Cocoa Research Conference in Indonesia. We start, though, with a clarification about use of metalaxyl on cocoa destined for the European Union.