Chocolate prices to keep rising as West Africa’s cocoa crisis deepens

Long the world’s undisputed cocoa powerhouses, accounting for more than 60 percent of global supply, Ghana and its West African neighbour Ivory Coast are both facing catastrophic harvests this season.

Expectations of shortages of cocoa beans – the raw material for chocolate – have seen New York cocoa futures more than double this year alone. They have hit new record highs almost daily in an unprecedented trend that shows little sign of abating.

More than 20 farmers, experts and industry insiders told the Reuters news agency that a perfect storm of rampant illegal gold mining, climate change, sector mismanagement and rapidly spreading disease is to blame.In its most sobering assessment to date, according to data compiled since 2018 and obtained by Reuters, Ghana’s cocoa marketing board Cocobod estimates that 590,000 hectares (1.45 million acres) of plantations have been infected with swollen shoot, a virus that will ultimately kill them.

Ghana today has some 1.38 million hectares (3.41 million acres) of land under cocoa cultivation, a figure Cocobod said includes infected trees that are still producing cocoa.