By AFP - Agence France Presse
Scientists warn of climate threat to chocolate.
Climate change triggered weeks of temperatures that wilted crops last year in the West African countries that underpin the world's chocolate supply, hitting harvests and likely pushing record prices even higher, researchers said Wednesday.
Farmers in the region - which accounts for around 70 percent of the world's cocoa production - have faced heat, disease, and unusual rainfall in recent years, which has contributed to falling output.
This has caused an explosion in the price of cocoa, which is produced from the seeds of the cacao tree and is the main ingredient in chocolate.
A new report has found that “climate change, due mainly to the burning of oil, coal, and methane gas, is causing higher temperatures to become more frequent” in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria.
The study, carried out by the independent research group Climate Central, found that the trend was particularly pronounced in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the two largest cocoa producers.
Using observational data from 44 cocoa-producing areas in West Africa and computer models, the researchers compared current temperatures with a counterfactual world without the effects of climate change.
They analyzed the likelihood of these regions facing temperatures higher than 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 Fahrenheit) - above the levels considered ideal for cocoa crops.
The report calculated that, over the last decade, climate change has added three more weeks of heat above 32°C in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana during the main growing season, between October and March.
Last year, the hottest year ever recorded worldwide, the researchers found that climate change led to temperatures above 32°C on at least 42 days in two-thirds of the areas analyzed.
The researchers stated that “excessive heat can contribute to a reduction in the quantity and quality of the harvest”.
Many other factors may also be damaging cocoa trees and driving up prices, they noted, including mealybug infestations, rainfall patterns, smuggling, and illegal mining.
Christian Aid published separate research on Wednesday into the vulnerability of chocolate and cocoa producers to climate change and the extremes caused by global warming.
The UK charity said conditions in West Africa had gone from extreme rainfall and spoiled crops during the dry season in 2023 to drought in 2024.
“Cocoa farming is a vital livelihood for many of the world's poorest people, and man-made climate change is putting this under serious threat,” said Osai Ojigho, Christian Aid's director of policy and public campaigns.
Failed harvests have helped drive a meteoric rise in cocoa prices since the end of 2023 on the London and New York markets, where the commodity is traded.
Cocoa prices in New York were above $10,000 a ton on Wednesday, down from a peak of more than $12,500 in mid-December.
Prices in New York have fluctuated widely between $2,000 and $3,000 a ton for decades.
In January, Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli said it would raise prices again this year to compensate for rising cocoa costs.
Narcisa Pricope, a professor at Mississippi State University, said the crop faces an “existential threat”, largely due to increasingly dry conditions in cocoa-producing regions.
Pricope was part of a recent survey by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which found that more than three-quarters of the landmass has become drier in the last 30 years.
Greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet are the main factor in this aridity, she said in a comment on The Conversation on Monday, but practices that degrade soils and nature also play an important role.
“Collective action against aridity is not just about saving chocolate - it's about preserving the planet's ability to sustain life,” she said.
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