Aboude, Ivory Coast – It’s 11 am in Aboude, a village in southern Côte d’Ivoire, and Magne Akoua has already been working on his cocoa farm for several hours. The 65-year-old moves slowly and methodically from tree to tree, scrupulously avoiding the scorching sun.
“We have to check our fruits daily. Every three months it ripens and we can harvest it. But the harvest hasn’t been good lately,” he says.
Akoua has been a farmer for more than 40 years since he decided to leave a low-level administrative job in Abidjan, the country’s economic capital, to run a small family farm on the outskirts of his homeland, Aboude.
Cocoa – the plant whose pods are harvested processed into cocoa, eventually turning into chocolate – it is a complex agricultural product that is particularly vulnerable to its natural environment.
“I love cocoa. It’s what I know best. But it’s very difficult to work with,” explains Akoua. “It becomes contaminated by pests. It needs a perfect balance of rain and heat to thrive, otherwise its roots become flooded and rot or simply dry out. That means we get less fruit and less fruit means less cocoa beans.”
This is what has happened in recent years in the country, and increasingly during the last harvest season that began in October 2023.
The world’s top cocoa producers – Ivory Coast followed by its neighbor Ghana – have been severely affected by the El Niño weather pattern.
The climate phenomenon, characterized by higher than average sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, has brought drier conditions to the West African region.
Additionally, climate change-induced warmer temperatures and altered precipitation patterns have further affected cocoa harvests.
“A few seasons ago, a hectare [2.5 acres] would yield around 600 kilos of cocoa. Nowadays it barely produces 300 kilos,” says Akoua.
‘We almost didn’t survive’
The struggle to survive is not new.
“Growing cocoa requires a lot of physical work and time. We can’t afford more labor, so [with the boys in the family] we do everything ourselves,” says Akoua. “We barely survived doing all this.”
But daily challenges become more acute in a extremely unequal market where production deficits mean farmers struggle to survive, while rising chocolate prices help boost profits for international companies.
Also in the village of Aboude, farmer Christian Kouassi describes such difficulties.
As a member of the local agricultural union, he is concerned about whether cocoa farmers will get a fair deal for the work they put into the harvest.
Kouassi has advocated for farmers to become a more proactive part of the sector’s value chain.
“We have absolutely no say in the price of the fruit we produce. This has to change somehow. As a union, we are concerned with making cocoa more sustainable and producing it in a way that benefits the community,” he says.
“The government recently increased the price per kilo of cocoa, it is a good step. But more needs to be done to help ourselves and our livelihoods,” she adds.
On April 2, Ivory Coast revealed the new price for the interim harvest season, which runs from April to September 2024. The price per kilogram of cocoa beans is now set at 1,500 CFA francs ($2.48) , which represents an increase of 50 percent.
This record price followed the increase in prices on the New York Stock Exchange in February. Cocoa prices hit a record $5,874 per ton on the New York commodities market.
Price stabilization
In 2021, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana introduced a premium of $400 per ton, known as the “decent yield differential”. The aim was to guarantee farmers a minimum income, regardless of fluctuations in the price of exported cocoa beans.
However, cocoa producers in Ivory Coast are still hopeful of further increases next season.
In the West African country, government authorities, along with various regulatory bodies and institutions, play a key role in determining the price of cocoa.
The Coffee-Cocoa Council (Conseil du Cafe Cacao) is the main entity in charge of regulating cocoa prices and overseeing the cocoa industry in the country.
Typically, at the start of each cocoa season, the government makes public announcements about cocoa prices, considering a range of factors, including global market rates, production expenses, and feedback from cocoa farmers and other stakeholders. Adopting a stabilization system effectively means that producers earn a certain income per kilogram sold, despite all these external factors.
“There is a guaranteed limit for cocoa producers. Traders who negotiate with multinationals see their profit margins vary, which is not the case for farmers. It is a system that makes sense when considering the instability of commodity prices – including cocoa – on the international market”, explains Souleymane Fofana.
Fofana began exporting cocoa in 2017, when he created his company, Cote d’Ivoire Commodities. As an exporter and plant operator, he has a bird’s eye view of the sector and understands its complexities.
“There are a lot of moving parts. For example, the changing environment… Over time, cocoa orchards age and become less productive, making it difficult for farmers to sustain their production. Not to mention that cocoa is not part of the average Ivorian’s diet. Chocolate is a luxury delicacy that most people don’t buy. At the end of the day, our market remains the Western market,” he told Al Jazeera.
International companies versus local economies
According to a market analysis report by Grand View Research, the global chocolate market value was estimated at US$119.39 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.1% from 2024 to 2030.
In 2023, United States-based Mars Wrigley Confectionery was the world’s leading manufacturer of chocolate and cocoa, with net sales of $22 billion. The Ferrero Group and Mondelez completed the top three companies, both exceeding US$10 billion in net sales.
Meanwhile, according to a new Oxfam Analysis, the collective fortunes of the Ferrero and Mars families have risen to $160.9 billion in 2023. This is more than the combined gross domestic products (GDP) of major cocoa producers Ivory Coast and Ghana. Ivory Coast is specifically responsible for 45 percent of global “brown gold” production.
“It’s a huge anomaly. And there needs to be a deep reflection at national level to fill these gaps and increase profits for our country and for all players in the sector”, says Fofana.
“We have a handful of local chocolatiers who make chocolate from our Ivory Coast cocoa beans. It’s great and all, but we have to be realistic. We do not have the capabilities and industrial capabilities to compete with giant multinationals who have developed their brand through decades of efficient advertising and a lot of capital,” he told Al Jazeera.
“What we can do, however, is expand our list of customers, opening up to other markets that also want to process and transform cocoa beans, such as countries in the MENA region, for example,” he adds.
‘Who owns the cocoa?’
Fofana specifically questions the relevance of the Cocoa Trade Federation, an entity created in 2002 to – as it describes its mission – “develop a unique and robust commercial framework for the cocoa market, allowing for the harmonization of contracts and providing education services and programs ”.
The cocoa exporter believes that the FCC guards business opportunities from countries such as Ivory Coast through its registration system.
“Companies have to register with the FCC, based in London. It makes you wonder ‘Who does cocoa really belong to?’
“The majority of our client companies are American and European. But the world is changing and the horizons of partnerships must expand with it. We should sell our cocoa to any country that likes chocolate”, he concludes.
Back in Aboude, Akoua and his family faithfully get up every morning to cultivate the precious cocoa, but they do not consume chocolate.
The farmer cannot imagine going to a store to spend his hard-earned income on a chocolate bar – which sells for around 1,500 CFA francs ($2.48) each, the same amount he would earn for a whole kilogram of cocoa beans. .
“In the end, we can try to diversify the use of our land and produce other crops. We’ve already tried. But our leaders have to ensure that we – at the source – benefit from all the money these big multinationals make,” she says.
“Our cocoa is clearly important to them and their consumers. We should be able to reap the benefits of this.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
