Browsing: Cocoa

Cocoa prices

The bitter pill of cocoa’s value chain in Ghana and Ivory Coast

Industry and Trade
  • Chocolate companies are avoiding paying minimum prices to cocoa farmers.
  • In Ghana and Ivory Coast, farmers are forced to engage in child labour to maintain optimum cocoa production amid meagre returns.
  • Cocoa prices peaked at $12,072 per tonne in February 2024.

Cocoa prices peaked at $12,072 per tonne in February of this year, only to drop to $7,960 per tonne this September, leaving farmers seeking solutions on how to cushion against such adverse price swings.

“Market reports say the world market price of cocoa has witnessed the highest levels of volatility over the past 12 months,” reported the Ghana Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr. Bryan Acheampong.

Ghana is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of cocoa, one of the highest-priced agricultural food products in the world. To protect her farmers, Ghana has increased the producer price of cocoa by over 129 per cent, the minister announced.

“The cocoa …

chocolate gettyimages 473741340

From cocoa bean to desert wasteland: The environmental toll of chocolate production in Africa

Industry and Trade
  • Bittersweet consequences. Global chocolate value chains are fueling desertification across West Africa, a new report says. 
  • As chocolate demand soars, Côte d'Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans is paying a huge price with 80 percent of its forest cover lost.
  • Corruption fueling illegal logging and deforestation of rainforests for cocoa farms

The raw material needed to make chocolate is cocoa beans, but West Africa, which produces 40 percent of the world's produce, is destroying its rainforests at an unprecedented pace to feed global demand.

Already, Côte d'Ivoire, the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans has lost 80 percent of its forest cover over in just sic decades, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports.

FAO's Transparency, Traceability and Deforestation survey in the Ivorian cocoa supply belt shows that the unmonitored value chain of chocolate is leaving populations vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change.

Chocolate demand rising globally

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Top cocoa producers, Ghana and Ivory Coast, have boycotted a major industry meeting that was to be held in Brussels. Photo/Gettyimages

Lessons for Africa in Brussels cocoa boycott

Industry and Trade

The World Cocoa Conference (WCC) was created back in 2012 by the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) and was launched in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

According to the WCC organizers, “the event is held every two years to assess the status of the world cocoa economy, review current challenges and agree on measures to address these issues.”

This single event brings together the most diverse range of decision-makers and other stakeholders in the cocoa and chocolate value chain, from all over the world.

The WCC, provides a unique opportunity to deliberate the industry challenges and he new opportunities that are arising every year. The WCC is also a platform to collect vital industry information as well as for stakeholders to network.…

A photo of an Ivory Coast farmer with cattle plough

Ivory Coast: A gigantic farmland worth investing  

Africa
  • Cocoa is a signature cash-crop for Ivory Coast
  • US Department of Agriculture slated to invest $61 million in Ivory Coast cashew nut
  • Ivory Coast economy is forecasted to expand by 6.7 percent in 2022

Ivory Coast is one of Africa’s largest farms.  More than 60 per cent of the national territory is dedicated as arable agricultural land. Ivory Coast is one of the largest economies in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, and agriculture is its backbone.  Cocoa production is the blood pumping through the economic veins of the Ivory Coast. The West African nation is not only the largest producer of Cocoa in the region but globally (contributing around 30 per cent).  

In 2020/2021, Ivory Coast produced 2.15 million metric tonnes of cocoa beans. In Ivory Coast, the share of agriculture to the economy stood at 21.39 per cent in 2020.     

The West African nation of more

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