Tag: Chocolate

The Future of Chocolate is in Danger: How Climate Change is Harming West Africa’s Cocoa Farms

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A close-up of cacao pods hanging from a tree branch. One pod is green and healthy, while the other is yellowed. The tree’s bark is rough, surrounded by green leaves.
A close-up of cacao pods hanging from a tree branch. One pod is green and healthy, while the other is yellowed. The tree’s bark is rough, surrounded by green leaves. Credit: Tope A. Asokere on Pexels.

The Chocolate Crisis You Didn’t See Coming

Imagine walking into your favorite store, craving a bar of smooth, rich chocolate, only to find that prices have skyrocketed—or worse, your favorite brand is no longer available. It sounds extreme, but this could be the reality in the not-so-distant future. West Africa produces 70% of the world’s cacao, the key ingredient in chocolate, but climate change is making it harder to grow. Rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and increasing crop diseases are threatening cacao farms.

This isn’t just bad news for chocolate lovers. Millions of farmers depend on cacao to feed their families and support their communities. If cacao production continues to decline, their livelihoods—and the world’s chocolate supply—are at risk.

Where Does Chocolate Come From? (And Why Should You Care?)

Most of us don’t think about where chocolate comes from—we just enjoy it. But before that delicious bar reaches your hands, it starts as a pod growing on a delicate cacao tree.

Cacao trees thrive in warm, humid climates, but there’s a catch—they can’t handle extreme heat. The ideal temperature for cacao trees is below 32°C (89.6°F), and anything hotter can start causing serious problems.

The biggest producers of cacao—Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria—rely on these trees for their economies. More than 9 million farmers and workers depend on cacao farming to survive. But now, climate change is pushing temperatures past safe levels, and cacao trees are suffering.

Rising Temperatures Are Hurting Cacao Farms

Cacao trees have been growing in West Africa for centuries, but in recent years, farmers have noticed something disturbing: it’s getting too hot for their crops.

  • Since 2015, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have had 40 extra days per year where temperatures rise above 32°C.
  • In 2024, 71% of cacao-producing areas experienced six extra weeks of extreme heat.

Why does this matter? Because excessive heat weakens cacao trees.

  • Too much heat reduces photosynthesis, slowing growth and lowering cacao yields.
  • Cacao pods shrivel up or grow smaller, reducing the amount of chocolate that can be made.
  • Farmers are losing money, and global chocolate prices are rising.

One farmer in Côte d’Ivoire described it best:

The leaves used to protect our cacao pods from the sun. Now, they fall off too soon, and the pods dry out before we can harvest them.

The result? Lower quality cacao, smaller harvests, and more expensive chocolate.

Too Much Rain, Then Not Enough

If rising temperatures weren’t bad enough, cacao trees now face another major problem: wildly unpredictable rainfall.

Cacao farming depends on steady, well-distributed rain—about 1,500 to 2,000 mm per year. But thanks to climate change, rainfall has become chaotic:

  • In July 2024, Côte d’Ivoire received 40% more rain than expected. Farms flooded, cacao pods rotted, and entire crops were lost.
  • In December 2024, some regions received almost no rain. Without water, cacao trees wilted, and pods stopped growing.

It’s a double disaster: too much rain drowns the crops, too little leaves them starving. Farmers can’t predict when to plant or harvest, and each year gets more uncertain.

It’s Not Just the Weather, There are Other Threats to Cacao Farming

As if extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall weren’t enough, cacao farmers face even more obstacles.

Pests & Diseases Are Spreading Faster Than Ever

Warmer temperatures help pests thrive, especially mealybugs, tiny insects that spread the deadly Cacao Swollen Shoot Virus (CSSV).

  • 600,000 hectares of cacao farms in Ghana were infected with CSSV in 2023.
  • This disease alone caused a 17% drop in Ghana’s cacao production.

When cacao trees get infected, they stop producing pods and eventually die. Farmers are losing entire farms to this disease, and finding ways to stop it is difficult.

Smuggling & Illegal Mining are Stealing Cacao Farmers’ Livelihoods

Cacao farming is already tough work, but low wages are forcing some farmers to sell their crops to smugglers or even give up farming entirely.

  • Ghana lost 160,000 tons of cacao to smugglers in the 2023/2024 season—three times more than the previous year.
  • Some farmers are leasing their land to illegal miners because mining pays better than farming.

The problem? Mining damages the land, making it impossible to farm cacao again. Once a farmer gives up their land, they may never be able to return to growing cacao.

Can Anything Be Done? Yes—But It Will Take Effort.

Despite these challenges, there are solutions that can help protect cacao farming. Here’s what’s being done:

Planting Shade Trees (Agroforestry)

  • Farmers are planting taller trees, like banana, mango, and cashew, to protect cacao from extreme heat.
  • These trees cool down cacao farms and improve soil moisture.

Fighting Pests & Disease

  • Scientists are working on disease-resistant cacao trees to fight CSSV.
  • Better pest management techniques could reduce losses by 17% per year.

Fair Trade & Financial Support

  • Programs that pay farmers fair wages reduce smuggling and illegal mining.
  • More financial support means farmers can afford climate adaptation strategies.

These solutions are helping, but they need global support to make a real impact.

You might be wondering—what can I actually do? Here are some ideas:

  • Choose ethical chocolate by looking for Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, or Direct Trade labels. These brands support sustainable cacao farming and fair wages for farmers.
  • Support reforestation projects. Some groups help plant shade trees on cacao farms to protect crops from climate change. Supporting these efforts helps cacao trees survive extreme weather.
  • Tell your friends and family about this issue.

Final Thoughts

Chocolate isn’t just a treat—it’s a lifeline for millions of farmers. But if climate change continues at this rate, chocolate could become a rare luxury. The good news? We still have time to act. By choosing sustainable chocolate, supporting reforestation, and spreading awareness, we can help protect cacao farming for generations to come.

Source: Climate Central. (2025, February 12). Climate change is heating up West Africa’s cocoa belt. Climate Central. Retrieved from https://www.climatecentral.org/

Products tied to legal and illegal deforestation may be banned in the European Union

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Photo by Jace & Afsoon on Unsplash
Photo by Jace & Afsoon on Unsplash

By Maxwell Radwin, Mongabay (CC BY-ND 4.0).

  • Proposed legislation in the European Union would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to legal or illegal deforestation.

  • The law would focus on the industries with some of the most egregious environmental track records, including soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as leather, chocolate and furniture.

  • Conservation groups have expressed satisfaction with the first-of-its kind legislation but are concerned about the lack of protections for Indigenous peoples, as well as carbon-rich ecosystems like savannas, wetlands and peatlands.

The European Union is considering an ambitious new proposal that would regulate imports of products linked to global forest loss.

The law would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to deforestation, whether legal or illegal. If passed, it would force producers to raise their environmental standards or risk losing out on a market of 27 countries and 450 million people.

“Europe is finally taking steps against the deforestation that it drives, and it is doing it not by placing the burden on consumers, but on the big companies that produce these products,” Nico Muzi, Europe director of environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth, told Mongabay. “If we want change, we need to regulate the industries that cause deforestation.”

The proposal, introduced by the European Commission earlier this week, gives special focus to products with some of the most egregious environmental track records, including soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee, as well as leather, chocolate and furniture. Should the proposal pass, importers will have to meet stricter traceability measures, such as sharing geographic coordinates of where their products originated.

It also establishes a benchmarking system to determine which countries are the most at risk of deforestation, and pledges 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to help them develop more sustainable forest management programs.

The EU predicts the proposal will cut at least 31.9 million metric tons of annual carbon emissions and save around 3.2 billion euros ($3.6 billion).

“We must protect biodiversity and fight climate change not only in the EU, but globally, and our consumption should not contribute to global deforestation, which is a major cause of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Virginijus Sinkevičius, the European commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries.

Between 1990 and 2020, an estimated 420 million trees were lost to deforestation worldwide, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Agriculture is responsible for nearly 90% of that, with cattle ranching being the biggest contributor.

Globally, Europe is the second-largest importer of products associated with deforestation, according to a 2021 WWF report. In recent years, trade to the region has led to around 16% of global forest loss.

A herd of cattle on a ranch in Colombia. Image by Rhett Butler, Mongabay.com
A herd of cattle on a ranch in Colombia. Image by Rhett Butler, Mongabay.com

The deforestation proposal is part of a package of recently announced environmental initiatives that include more rigorous regulations for waste and waste trafficking, as well as improved soil protections to increase carbon storage in agricultural areas, fight desertification and restore degraded land, the European Commission said in a statement.

“If we expect more ambitious climate and environmental policies from partners, we should stop exporting pollution and supporting deforestation ourselves,” Sinkevičius said, adding, “With these proposals, we are taking our responsibility and walking the talk by lowering our global impact on pollution and biodiversity loss.”

Other countries, coming out of the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, have announced similar plans to clean up supply chains. Last week, the U.K. passed a law banning products linked to illegal deforestation. In October, U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill that holds importers accountable for forest loss.

However, unlike the European proposal, neither of those measures targets legal drivers of deforestation.

Loopholes and missed opportunities

While the EU’s proposal takes ambitious steps to protect forests, it falls short when it comes to other types of carbon-rich ecosystems, some environmental groups pointed out. For example, the proposal’s current language would exclude protection of many savannas, wetlands and peatlands.

In addition to storing massive amounts of carbon, these ecosystems prevent soil erosion and flooding, and help provide clean drinking water.

“There’s simply no need to destroy native ecosystems to make room for commercial crops,” Mighty Earth’s Muzi said. “There are more than 1 billion acres [400 million hectares] of previously degraded land where all future agricultural needs can easily be met without threatening the world’s last ecosystems.”

Mongabay has reported extensively on the rapid disappearance of wetlands and peatlands due to palm oil, timber and other agricultural commodities, as well as governments’ continued omission of these landscapes from legislation.

The EU’s proposal also fails to include special protections for Indigenous communities, which often serve as stewards of the environment. Instead, it relies on the local laws of the exporting countries despite the fact they’re often weak or ignored.

Muzi said he expects officials to close this loophole by including international human rights standards in the proposal’s language. And because proposals by the European Commission are often heavily revised, he expects many of the other loopholes to be addressed, too.

“Usually, Europe sets the standard for environmental regulations,” he said. “It is often at the forefront. We expect other regions will follow.”