Chocolate will cost more than ever because of the
climate crisis
.
Extreme weather events in the tropical African region that produces almost two-thirds of the world's cocoa are driving the price of the food input to record levels after reaching prices in the main world markets that have never been seen before.
In a year and a half, a ton went from 2,000 to more than 6,000 dollars
.
Ivory Coast and Ghana, neighbors in West Africa, together produce 60% of the planet's cocoa.
Last year they experienced
unusual torrential rains
that caused diseases to develop in the cocoa trees and soon after a persistent drought with strong winds.
The consequence is that according to estimates this season's harvest, which began in October and should last until the end of March, will be
between 15% and 25% smaller than in recent years.
Ivory Coast, the world's leading producer, will go from 2.3 million tons to 1.8 million.
The other indicator that the markets look at, that of tons loaded on export vessels in the ports of the two African countries, is also lower than in other years.
From almost 1.7 million tons of the previous harvest to less than 1.2 million of this one.
Torrential rains and then drought affected cocoa production in Ivory Coast.
Photo: EFE
This
shortage
, which will affect the cocoa that must reach the markets in the coming months, means that for the first time in history a ton costs more than $6,000.
Another blow to the economy of Europe, a major buyer of African cocoa, and which still suffers from inflation.
Negative outlook
The markets, scrutinized day by day from Belgium, one of the countries that exports the most quality chocolate at high prices
, fear that the problem goes beyond a bad year and that the reduction is structural,
making cocoa more expensive because the Supply will be repetitively lower than demand, pulling the prices of its derivatives and final products upward.
There are elements, cited by the Belgian media, that raise fears of a structural reduction in cocoa production.
The government of Ivory Coast has prohibited new plantations since 2018 because they generated deforestation
that
was destroying the country's tropical forests, which already cover barely 9% of the national territory when they should be the majority.
This limitation on new plantations was also done to support prices because producers would be switching to planting rubber trees or palm trees for the production of palm oil.
With both they earn more than with
cocoa, which is still 40% of everything Ivory Coast exports.
A farmer carries a bag of cocoa in Adzope, Ivory Coast, in an image from 2023. Photo: EFE
This principle of abandonment in plantations in Ghana and the Ivory Coast cannot be replaced from one year to the next because cocoa trees take years to become productive.
If production is reduced in Africa, there is no way to supply it in other markets
and there will be less cocoa on offer in the world.
Hence prices skyrocket.
Ecuador and Brazil in Latin America, Indonesia in Asia and Nigeria in Africa are the other producers with an important market share, but none of them alone reach 10% worldwide.
Prices
The markets set the prices of the entire chain and African producers receive, according to estimates by the Belgian economic expert
L'Echo
, just over 1.50 dollars per kilo of the more than 6 dollars per kilo at which cocoa is already priced. in world markets.
It is an increase of just over 10% compared to last year when the increase in fungicides to contain tree diseases is greater, like that of fertilizers.
With prices tripling in a year and a half they earn less.
In Brussels supermarkets (the Belgian is one of the Europeans that consumes the most chocolate) a price increase is beginning to be noticed, but far from having doubled, which could happen from spring, when the cocoa harvested in this harvest.
If the price of grain rises, so that chocolate does not do so, even more could start eating dark chocolate, because
the other key input, sugar, has also been rising in price for almost a year
due to production problems in key countries, such as Brazil and Ukraine.
C.B.