The climate crisis has led to prolonged high temperatures in West Africa, a region responsible for about 70% of global cacao production, negatively impacting harvests and likely driving record-high chocolate prices, researchers have warned.
Farmers in countries like Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria have struggled with extreme heat, disease, and irregular rainfall in recent years, contributing to declining production. This drop has pushed up the price of cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate.
A report by Climate Central found that climate change or crisis—primarily caused by burning fossil fuels—is making extreme heat more common in cacao-producing regions. Using data from 44 cacao-growing areas, researchers compared current temperatures with a scenario in which global warming was absent.
They found that in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s largest cacao producers, climate change has added an extra three weeks of temperatures exceeding 32°C (89.6°F) during the main growing season from October to March over the past decade. In 2023—the hottest year on record—temperatures surpassed 32°C on at least 42 days in two-thirds of the studied areas.
Excessive heat can lower both the quantity and quality of cacao harvests, researchers noted. Other challenges, such as mealybug infestations, shifting rainfall patterns, smuggling, and illegal mining, have further strained cacao production and driven prices higher.
A separate study by Christian Aid highlighted the vulnerability of cacao farmers to climate change, citing extreme rainfall and spoiled crops in 2023, followed by drought in 2024. Osai Ojigho, the charity’s policy director, warned that human-caused climate change is threatening the livelihoods of some of the world’s poorest farmers.
Since late 2023, poor harvests have led to a sharp rise in cocoa prices on global markets. On Wednesday, New York cocoa prices surpassed $10,000 per tonne, down from a peak of over $12,500 in December, but still far above the historical range of $2,000 to $3,000 per tonne.
Narcisa Pricope, a professor at Mississippi State University, warned that cacao production faces an “existential threat” due to increasingly dry conditions. She contributed to a UN study revealing that over three-quarters of the Earth’s landmass has become drier in the past 30 years, primarily due to greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable land practices.
Pricope stressed that addressing land aridity is about more than just saving chocolate—it’s about protecting the planet’s ability to sustain life.
